I’ve come to the time in poetry workshop where we are talking about poem forms like the sonnet, the ghazal, the villanelle. As the professor asked if we were ready to write a sonnet, my cackling, nervous laughter filled my apartment. Thank Lorde my mic was muted. Still, it was evident on my face that I was terrified of the prospect. No, we weren’t going to do a sonnet, thankfully. But, he asked us to pull one of our recent poem drafts and re-envision it as a villanelle. Of the form poems, this one is easier because of its repeating lines. I will try it. Not just because it’s now an assignment but because of the way the professor described the form.
The non-repeating lines drive the story forward but there is only so much that can be told of the story because you only have a set number of lines and the repeating lines keep pulling that story back.
It’s like ocean waves, receding and advancing. It’s like Mercury Retrograde, where we need to check what we and others comprehend through the act of repetition and by returning to the last understood moment in the story.
It’s like the new moon in Libra, that provides balance and asks for breath toward compromise.
And, once again, this may mean that the entirety of a story isn’t revealed. I know poets struggle with ending a poem clean, illuminating a greater understanding for the narrator and/or reader. But most stories don’t end that way. Most hold pieces of each witness. Most of us contain multiple witnesses within us, encompassing past, present, future, and alternative voices. And most stories (and poets) struggle in that in between place where the emotions are closest to truth.
Maybe it’s the retrograde talking. Maybe because my own sign will hold its new moon sometime early Wednesday morning. Maybe because I am now, more than ever, I’m invested in the middle of my story and not ready to see a clean end yet. And so I keep pulling back at the root of me, then tell a little more of my story.