A new villanelle and the end of NaPoWriMo

Well, it’s official – on the last morning of April I have finished NaPoWriMo – I have written 30 poems in 30 days (in reality in about 15 days but anyway), and so I can now tick off both writing challenges for the month (the other being Camp NaNoWriMo which I talked about here).

I find I learn a lot about myself writing poetry this way. I’m not the sort of person who spends hours on each and every poem. Some poems come to me in minutes. Some of my poems also suck, but some are kind of okay and sometimes the okay ones can be the quick ones too. I definitely think being in Sweden has affected my poetry this time around, with many of them revolving around the seasons (and hence being haiku), in particular Winter and Spring. But some of the themes I have touched upon in my poems have come from who knows where.

Anyway, I only wrote one villanelle this month, but they are my favourite kind of poem so I figured I’d share it. If you want to read about how villanelles work (and some better examples of the form), I wrote about it a couple of years ago in this post here, otherwise read on to see my latest villanelle:

You take your coffee extra strong tonight
It’s been a long and lonely day
But you’re going to come through alright

You look exhausted, a terrible sight
You’re unsure how long you’ll stay
So you take your coffee extra strong tonight

Because you don’t want to sleep this night
You have only just run away
But you’re going to come through alright

It took so long for you to see the light
To realise you shouldn’t exist that way
That’s why you take strong coffee tonight

You never tried to put up a fight
But you couldn’t hide from his violent display
You never thought you’d come through this alright

But never again will he give you such a fright
You’ve reclaimed your life, come what may
You take your coffee extra strong tonight
Because from now on everything will be alright

I won’t explain it much, because I feel it’s fairly self-explanatory what it’s about. I often find myself drawn to sad themes when I write villanelles, often of people trying to escape from some kind of pain or suffering, or sometimes about them not managing to escape but simply hoping to one day. I just find the circular nature of the poem forces me to really think about what I’m writing more, to really hone in on a singular moment and dig as deep as I can.

Anyway, with two writing challenges out of the way, it’s time for me to go rest, read, and think of all the blogging I’m going to do in May – I’m going to aim for three posts a week minimum, so stay tuned!