TO WRITE A VILLANELLE
 
To write a villanelle you need to scan;
That’s first among the many things you do.
Pentameters in iambs is my plan.

Now how to fill this long six-stanza span
With something that moves on yet circles too?
To write a villanelle you need to scan,

Scan more than meter, scan your mind now wan
But soon to brighten as new thoughts ensue.
Pentameters in iambs is my plan

Because I’ll do the kind that I best can,
And centuries have shown how well they do.
To write a villanelle you need to scan

The future and then all of history’s span
And, while about it, hell and heaven, too.
Pentameters in iambs is my plan

Because that’s where our poetry began:
What Chaucer did is what I’m bound to do.
To write a villanelle you need to scan
Pentameters in iambs, by my plan.

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