Cosette's Villanelle

It’s my last blog scheduled for National Poetry Month, and so far throughout 2022 I have shared my sonnets written for my mother, my wife, and the first two of my three daughters. I think it’s time to try and find the words to encompass my little Cosette Laurie Christine Roberts.

I can’t recall the occasion for penning this poem several years back, but I easily recall the thought in my head at the time that Cosette herself required something unique, something other than a sonnet. I included my pre-writing notes with Zoe’s sonnet a few weeks back. I think I’ll do the same thing with Cosette’s villanelle.

Cosette - natural birth - looks like her father - drummer - marching to the beat - rhythm - eye contact - little thing, pet, one - bball, lefty - villanelle - 1606 jean passerat poem - tercets - 3 lines - 3rd daughter - obsessions - French origins - Dylan thomas Do not go gentle - save her name for the end?

The villanelle is of French origin, as is the name Cosette; it consists of five separate three line verses, or tercets (rhymes with Cosette) followed by a four line quatrain. Lines one and three in the first tercet are repeated alternately throughout the poem, and are used as the last two lines of the quatrain.

A wonderfully unusual format, and reading the poem again brings back the pleasure of playing with it. Hmm. Am I now talking about the poem, or Cosette?

Just as each sunrise gives life fresh and clean,

So each new birth begins a bold tale;

She walks a path the world has not yet seen.

Third of three daughters, few pages between,

The story her own as she seeks her own trail;

Just so, each sunrise gives life fresh and clean.

She dances with rhythm, she plays her own scene,

Never a chance for the plot to grow stale;

She walks a path the world has not yet seen.

She plays the pale princess, much more than the queen,

In breathless events, a friend without fail;

And so each sunrise gives life fresh and clean.

She moves through each chapter, a fine figurine,

Tasting misery, joy, all that life should entail;

She walks a path the world has not yet seen.

She wears well the name Cosette Laurie Christine,

The novel of life filling like a mainsail.

Just as each sunrise gives life fresh and clean,

She walks a path the world has not yet seen.

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What do you like to write best.....fiction, non-fiction or poetry and why?

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