What is this moon?
A Villanelle70 total reviews
Comment from L.lora
Forlorn, morose and yet
so very intriguing is this
penning of yours. The cadence
draws your reader mesmerized
through your lines steadily
and as we move down the page
it is as if we are giving our
selves over to the moon, the
wight and the gibbet. Excellent...
kudos. Lora
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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Forlorn, morose and yet
so very intriguing is this
penning of yours. The cadence
draws your reader mesmerized
through your lines steadily
and as we move down the page
it is as if we are giving our
selves over to the moon, the
wight and the gibbet. Excellent...
kudos. Lora
Comment Written 09-Sep-2016
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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Lovely to hear from you, Lora, and thank you so much for this kind review and for the six stars. Both much appreciated! I don't often take a turn on the dark side! However, it was fun to pen a counter-balance to the usual romanticism of moon poems!
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You are more than welcome, it was a pleasure to read and review. Lora
Comment from dragonpoet
You do well in describing the moon on an eerie cloudy night. You chose a good piece of artwork for illustration of this villanelle. You also allude to how the moon rules nature and our lives.
Good luck in the contest.
Keep writing
dragonpoet
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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You do well in describing the moon on an eerie cloudy night. You chose a good piece of artwork for illustration of this villanelle. You also allude to how the moon rules nature and our lives.
Good luck in the contest.
Keep writing
dragonpoet
Comment Written 09-Sep-2016
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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Good to hear from you, Dragonpoet, and thank you so much for this kind review. Much appreciated! I don't often take a turn on the dark side! However, it was fun to pen a counter-balance to the usual romanticism of moon poems!
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No thank needed. It is what we are here to do.
Joan
Comment from kiwisteveh
Hi, Tony. Thanks for taking part in my Villanelle contest - I'm glad you could join in the fun.
And what fun we are having here - pallid, fetid, gibbet, wight, clammy, leprosies... I reckon you must have forgotten to take your happy pills today! Actually, I like that you have taken the usual romantic conventions of the moon and turned them on their heads.
Although you must have whipped this up quite quickly, you show great technique with this tricky form. I'm still struggling to polish one I've been writing off and on for a couple of weeks. Rhyme and meter are spot on, and the use of enjambment, gives you freedom to vary the way the repeating lines are read.
It'll be a good one that beats this.
Steve
reply by the author on 10-Sep-2016
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Hi, Tony. Thanks for taking part in my Villanelle contest - I'm glad you could join in the fun.
And what fun we are having here - pallid, fetid, gibbet, wight, clammy, leprosies... I reckon you must have forgotten to take your happy pills today! Actually, I like that you have taken the usual romantic conventions of the moon and turned them on their heads.
Although you must have whipped this up quite quickly, you show great technique with this tricky form. I'm still struggling to polish one I've been writing off and on for a couple of weeks. Rhyme and meter are spot on, and the use of enjambment, gives you freedom to vary the way the repeating lines are read.
It'll be a good one that beats this.
Steve
Comment Written 09-Sep-2016
reply by the author on 10-Sep-2016
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Thanks for the review and stars, Steve. I was in a maudlin mood when I wrote this one. We've been dealing with a distraught daughter recently who flew in unexpectedly from New York, her best friend here having suicided.
Thanks, too, for organising this. I was playing around with a dour piece of blank verse, much of which transposed rather well into the villanelle in the early hours of the morning.
Now all I need to do is come up with an Italian sonnet sometime next week, having just nabbed the 2nd to last spot. Keep them coming!
All the best,
Tony
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Ah, good. I was going to ask whether you'd seen the sonnet contest. So. one spot left for me, unless someone else grabs it first.
Suicide in the news here - now the third highest cause of death (behind cancer and heart disease) and some shocking statistics around young Maori men in particular. Policy has been to not do a song and dance about it for fear of planting the seed in impressionable minds, but the numbers keep going up.
Comment from William Ross
very good on the villanelle about the moon. great rhyming and rhythm has good meter and flow when read. best of luck on this and have a good day.
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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very good on the villanelle about the moon. great rhyming and rhythm has good meter and flow when read. best of luck on this and have a good day.
Comment Written 09-Sep-2016
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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Good to hear from you, William, and thank you so much for this kind review. Much appreciated! Tony
Comment from Pantygynt
The white goddess is reeling from the blows. The moon where we would spoon in June is reduced here to a "fetid pool of light". I have read plenty of horror on this site but this is something else again. There is something about this rant against moonlight that is real. It made me wonder if this is a real feeling of anger perhaps brought on by the recent bereavement that has disrupted your family.
you are normally one to see beauty in everything this seems totatally outb of character -- brilliant but passing strange, like a scker punch in the solarp lexus from one who has never before raised a finger. Ouch!
As Dylan Thomas found, the villanelle while being cursedly difficult to write is a brilliant vehicly for a rant.
reply by the author on 10-Sep-2016
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The white goddess is reeling from the blows. The moon where we would spoon in June is reduced here to a "fetid pool of light". I have read plenty of horror on this site but this is something else again. There is something about this rant against moonlight that is real. It made me wonder if this is a real feeling of anger perhaps brought on by the recent bereavement that has disrupted your family.
you are normally one to see beauty in everything this seems totatally outb of character -- brilliant but passing strange, like a scker punch in the solarp lexus from one who has never before raised a finger. Ouch!
As Dylan Thomas found, the villanelle while being cursedly difficult to write is a brilliant vehicly for a rant.
Comment Written 09-Sep-2016
reply by the author on 10-Sep-2016
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Thanks, Jim. You're right, the suicide of my daughter's best friend has been casting a bit of a cloud recently. I must dream up something a bit more cheerful for the Petrarchan sonnet!
Comment from Nika2016
Five for rhymes and meter, but the most sickening image of the moon that I have read...whatever turned you against dear Luna?..
If you cannot love the moon, is love possible?
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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Five for rhymes and meter, but the most sickening image of the moon that I have read...whatever turned you against dear Luna?..
If you cannot love the moon, is love possible?
Comment Written 09-Sep-2016
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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Lovely to hear from you, Nika, and thank you so much for this kind review. Much appreciated! I don't often take a turn on the dark side and am no match for Dean! However, it was fun to pen a counter-balance to the usual romanticism of moon poems! Actually, I also rather like the moon! Best wishes, Tony
Comment from Aussie
Best lines; that seeps across the clammy skin of night, eroding solid shores with shifting seas? I did enjoy your Villanelle contest entry, wish you luck with this entry. Poor old moon came out second-best with your descriptions. Especially the description, "gangrenous on this pockmarked, rotting cheese." Way back when, men and women were left to rot, hanging from trees. English set their heads in plain sight as a warning. Well done friend.
reply by the author on 10-Sep-2016
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Best lines; that seeps across the clammy skin of night, eroding solid shores with shifting seas? I did enjoy your Villanelle contest entry, wish you luck with this entry. Poor old moon came out second-best with your descriptions. Especially the description, "gangrenous on this pockmarked, rotting cheese." Way back when, men and women were left to rot, hanging from trees. English set their heads in plain sight as a warning. Well done friend.
Comment Written 09-Sep-2016
reply by the author on 10-Sep-2016
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Thanks, Aussie. There's a long tradition of macabre night-time scenes in Europe, often inspired by the kinds of event you have describes. The misted moon, as seen through a thick yellow London fog, castes an eerie glow and gets the imagination racing!
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Can you imagine that watery moon slipping through the foggy streets as Jack the Ripper did his grisly work? Creepy eh?
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I spent a year at medical school in Londoninthe 1960s and well remember the pea-souperwinter fogs of those days!
Comment from Jackarrie
This is a fabulous poem, it is so entertaining, so different from what we normally read about the moon, I love the repeating line, "What is this moon, this fetid pool of light"
I never thought there could be so many adjectives to describe a moon so fetid. Well done, I wish I had a six
Mary
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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This is a fabulous poem, it is so entertaining, so different from what we normally read about the moon, I love the repeating line, "What is this moon, this fetid pool of light"
I never thought there could be so many adjectives to describe a moon so fetid. Well done, I wish I had a six
Mary
Comment Written 09-Sep-2016
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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Many thanks, Mary, for your very kind review of my repulsive poem! Delighted, too, with your generous gift of six stars, albeit invisible ones - which are, nonetheless, much appreciated! Best wishes, Tony
Comment from duchessofdrumborg
What is this moon"? is an extremely well-written piece. This talented poet had the hair on the back of my neck rising. KEEP WRITING! It was a pleasure to both read and review a work of this caliber.
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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What is this moon"? is an extremely well-written piece. This talented poet had the hair on the back of my neck rising. KEEP WRITING! It was a pleasure to both read and review a work of this caliber.
Comment Written 09-Sep-2016
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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Thanks, Duchess. We can't let Dean have an absolute monopoly over the monstrous and macabre!
twfawcus, you're right about Dean. I have to turn the sound down when I read his work!
Best wishes, the Duchess
Comment from DR DIP
I like it I like the continuing question asked I think it adds to the poem nicely.
What is this moon, this fetid pool of light? What does fetid mean?
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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I like it I like the continuing question asked I think it adds to the poem nicely.
What is this moon, this fetid pool of light? What does fetid mean?
Comment Written 09-Sep-2016
reply by the author on 09-Sep-2016
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Thanks, Dip. A fetid pool is one that smells extremely unpleasant. I had in mind moonlight over swampland with malodorous marsh gas.
