Round 3=Mary Moriarty

After reading Mary's villanelle, I learned some things about the style of this poem. It revolves around rhymes. Each stanza has 3 lines, each second line rhymes with the others. The first and third lines also all rhyme. The last word of each stanza alters between 2 words, no stanza rhymes with any other word besides those 2. For example the first stanza ends with disaster, the second with master, the third with disaster, fourth with master, and the 5th and 6th with disaster. Here's a list of the end words from the 2nd lines. Intent, spent, meant, went, confident, evident; they all rhyme. Here's my attempt at writing a villanelle.

I always got a hat on my head
I have 9 different snapbacks in my room
I'm only without one in my bed

I've always been smart my parents said
But listening's been a problem since I was in the womb
My biggest fear is being dead

Enough about me, I let it get to my head
Literally, without jokes life's a gloom
Without jokes I wouldn't get out of bed

One thing I will always dread
The feeling of missing someone, someone whom
Has always been there but will eventually be dead

When that day comes I'll be hanging on by a thread
The thought of it makes my head go boom
Then I really won't get out of my bed

After reading the poem The Backseat of My Mother's Car, by Julia Copus, I got a sense of the style used. The poem is structured in a way such that when you read it, you get a false understanding of the line until you continue reading and finish the sentence. Every sentence is split and spans over more then one line. To give you an example of this I'll show you how the poem starts.
"We left before I had time
to comfort you, to tell you that we nearly touched
hands in that vacuous half-dark. I wanted". The first line seems like a sentence in itself, but it continues to be a smaller part of a bigger sentence. The first line is also the last line, they both read "We left before I had time". There's no rhyme pattern that I could identify.

I enjoyed the poem Fatherland by Mary Moriarty. The thing I probably liked about it the most is the form. I love how the form gives you a different understanding of the poem every time you read it. It doesn't allow you to read it the way you read a basic book. I liked the usage of her metaphors, for example "and I am left holding an album of nameless warriors." Another metaphor she used is "the hollow middle with it's coatless summers."

I was not as fond of the poem Track Photo. It had a depressing tone (for lack of a better word) in it. I'm usually not fond of sad poems. I like how the poem ties together, and how she doesn't go on and on, it's short and to the point. She uses a small amount of words to tell a bigger story. I like how she doesn't come straight out and say it, she tells the reader in a kind of mysterious or hidden way. For example when talking about the person in the track photo, she wrote "Now you are missing, your urn pushed." Clearly the person has passed away but she doesn't say it like that.

Thanksgiving

2 years ago

at my mom's house

the last Thanksgiving with Diego

before he went away

Even though it pains me

I'm thankful for it

If he didn't, we'd still be at home

fighting/arguing over something

we both don't care about

There was so much tension between us

the smallest of things

were blown way out of proportion

not because we actually cared

just to have a reason to argue

and be upset at each other

Visiting him now, we never fight

he's finally someone I can look up to again

I can't wait for him

to come back home

It'll be like being young again

even though I'm still young

2 years ago