Poetry Part I

During this quarantine, I have been learning online from my teachers through Google Classroom. One of my classes has brought forth some creative opportunity during this time: Poetry. For these past three weeks, I have been assigned to write three different poems in three traditional forms. The first of which is a Villanelle.

A Villanelle uses repeating lines in each stanza. In the first stanza, the two repeating lines are introduced separated by a third line that does not repeat, making the rhyme scheme AbA. The rhyme scheme for the following four tercets (three line stanzas) is abA, with the repeating lines (A) alternating each stanza.

The poem ends with a quatrain (four line stanza) with a rhyme scheme of abAA. The poem is written in iambic pentameter, with ten syllables per line alternating unstressed and stressed. The prompt I considered to write my Villanelle was this: "Consider something that happens over and over again that you dislike."

Alarming
By Caleb Gottry

So shut my ears to that unwelcome sound– 
No longer in the crazy world of dreams.
“Why must my eyes be open?” I now frown.

Dark figures sometimes cloud my nights around.
They haunt and scare and cause no sleep for me,
So shut my ears to that unwelcome sound.

Or, in a world where glories do abound,
I find myself in charge of great regimes.
“Why must my eyes be open?” I now frown.

Awake, but I’m not moving from my down.
My dark blue blanket shields the cold extremes, 
So shut my ears to that unwelcome sound.

Asleep in perfect comfort– how profound!
Forgetting abnormality that teems,
“Why must my eyes be open?” I now frown.

Returning to my bed each night, unwound,
I hope to sleep ‘til safety is a theme, 
So shut my ears to that unwelcome sound.
“Why must my eyes be open?” I now frown.