I’m having great fun with my 2024 NPM project. I’m writing daily (mostly privately), and…audiencing. After ten years of public projects, when I never managed to both write AND appreciate the writing of others, it feels good to spend time each day reading, appreciating, and being inspired by all you’ve been up to! (If I’ve missed yours, leave a link in the comments!)
This poem was inspired by the villanelle Tanita wrote this week. She compared the experience of writing a villanelle to the Poetry Sisters’ recent writing of another form with repeating lines — the pantoum. I wanted to test Tanita’s hypothesis that a villanelle is better for “…short lines, direct ideas. It’s good for inescapable truths. A pantoum sometimes leaves more wiggle room…”
I’m not sure I hit upon any inescapable truths, but I did have fun.
Jone has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup. Happy National Poetry Month!
A(nother) Year of Reading 
Love the parallels here. “Quarter to six leaves me nix” is a great line. Thanks, Mary Lee!
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I like short lines in the poem and how it reads aloud. Like the rhyme: six, flicks, sticks, the sound of it.
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I love the sound and rhythm of this, Mary Lee. I never seem to get a Poetry Month project done myself, but I do engage in a lot of appreciating. 😀 ❤️
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The cat chooses to believe that being up at a quarter to six should be an inescapable truth for everyone. 😆
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Indeed!
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Charming! I can tell you had fun with this poem. 🙂
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I believe the “inescapable truth” can happen only when one has a cat, who insists upon the predictable, “at quarter to six”. Glad you’re having fun, Mary Lee!
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We both gave mention to cats in our respective poetic offering this week, Mary Lee, but for different reasons. I loved hearing the sound repetion in your poem. It underscored the passing of time.
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Mary Lee, thank you for this sweet Villanelle, and for experimenting with the shorter lines. I’m feeling a need to put Tanita’s idea to the test too. The fun rhyme scheme really sings with the short lines, and I can tell you had fun! Thank you for visiting my blog and reading my first week’s Ethical ELA poems. That is a lovely and kind idea for NPM to enjoy others’ work. 🙂
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I agree that being in the audience and sampling all the other projects is pretty fun. I do that too out of necessity. I just don’t have time for more than that. Someday, I’m going to rock a project. For now, I’m enjoying the show! Villanelle….hmmmm? I haven’t tried one of these. But, I adore “short.” So, we’ll see.
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Mary Lee, I love this poem! What a delicious combination of ixes and ees! A perfect fix for my morning brain freeze!
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OMG…cats and quarter to six! That says it all! I love this (and I’m not a cat fan, so that is how much I love it).
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Fun! I like having a feline “villain” in a villanelle. Bonus points for unusual rhyming sounds!
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The repetition of “quarter to six” keeps time throughout your poem, Mary Lee. The ‘second hand’ being “his tail flicks”. You are one of the best audiences for poets there is. 🙂
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This is so fun Mary Lee! nix and flicks- great, unexpected rhyme!
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Tick-tock the cat will have his grinning way (his tail flicks). Clearly you had fun with your villanelle, and I am all for experiments with form. Thank you for audiencing, a gift equal to writing for us!
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The lines
Quarter to six
shows me nix
made me laugh out loud. By chance I was woken by both dog and cat early yesterday and lay in bed composing a poem in my head about the rude awakening. Your poem made me think of that, but also I just loved the use of rhyme here. Very clever.
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Haha–I love the opposite viewpoints of you and Cat. And that you’re enjoying and reading and reacting in NPM. I bet that’s a nice change of pace!
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I love writing a villanelle and a pantoum. And this with the ‘quarter to six” is a delight. Have you thought to try it as a pantuom?
I am in the weeds with revising my middle grade novel and thus not writing as many new poems.
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