Inequitable, villanelle - revised Options

[JLY]

INEQUITABLE

1st Revision: 10/30

In the village square the jury deliberated,
acquittal would not be a consensus volition,
the spirit of forgiveness had been aborted.

A gallery of moon-faced peers cavorted,
swaying judgment to a hardened position,
in the village square the jury deliberated.

A climate of confusion loudly resonated,
as conflicts were excused by this commission,
the spirit of forgiveness had been aborted.

Equitable decisions were unsupported,
like ravens, they preyed the opposition,
in the village square the jury deliberated.

Their willful blindness to justice exacerbated
solemn malaise foretold a dark apparition,
the spirit of forgiveness had been aborted.

A final appeal had been summarily adjudicated,
the angel of death demanded contrition;
in the village square the jury deliberated,
the spirit of forgiveness had been aborted.


First Posting:

In the village square the jury deliberated,
acquittal would not be a consensus volition,
the spirit of forgiveness had been aborted.

A gallery of moon-faced peers cavorted,
swaying judgment to a hardened position,
in the village square the jury deliberated.

A climate of confusion loudly resonated,
not to be diminished by collaborative appeal,
the spirit of forgiveness had been aborted.

Equitable decisions were unsupported,
scavenging ravens encircled the courthouse,
in the village square the jury deliberated.

Their willful blindness to justice exacerbated
a solemn malaise foretelling dark apparitions,
the spirit of forgiveness had been aborted.

A final appeal had been summarily adjudicated,
the angel of death commanded the last oracle;
in the village square the jury deliberated,
the spirit of forgiveness had been aborted.

[Alan]

Dear John,

This is a brave attempt at a not-easy form. There are several areas you might want to look at.

All your A and B lines are correct, incl the A and a rhymes, but your b (line 2 in each verse) rhymes vary, they should all be the same.

When I do a V, I cheat by finding lots of the b rhyme at Rhymezone, and working with those. Sometimes I have found the word I choose has too few rhyme words, so I change it ! Lazy.

I also think there are some rules about it being 4 or 5 iambic feet, your lrngths do vary a bit.

Hope you don't mind, I'm sure a little revision will fix.

Love
Alan

[Thoth]

Hi John
Alan has picked up the main nits so all I can add is the metre is rather erratic which makes it lumpy to read. This is a very difficult form to do in it's correct way (without the cheats) When you have the found the rhyming words, I will happy to come back and assist with smoothing out the metre issues.
regards, Wally

[JLY]

Alan,
Thanks for jumping in, this was my first attempt and I suspected that I might have not followed the rules in a correct manner.
I will work on it and see if I can get it to fit the pattern.
JLY

[JLY]

Wally,
I thought meter was not important in the V form, that is why I chose it becaue it seemed to be free and easy. The rhymes will be easy to fix and I will work on that and come back with a revision very shortly.
Thanks,
JLY

[Thoth]

The b lines all match now. Alan?
I have to go away for a week but will do a scansion when I return;

Wally

Here is a quick reference that I use;

In a traditional Villanelle:
* The lines are grouped into five tercets and a concluding
quatrain. Thus a Villanelle has 19 lines.
* Lines may be of any length.
* The Villanelle has two rhymes. The rhyme scheme is aba, with the
same end-rhyme for every first and last line of each tercet and the
final two lines of the quatrain.

* Two of the lines are repeated:
1. The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the last
line of the second and the fourth stanzas, and as the second-to-last
line in the concluding quatrain.
2. The third line of the first stanza is repeated as the last
line of the third and the fifth stanzas, and as the last line in the
concluding quatrain.

* Thus the pattern of line-repetition is as follows:

A1 b A2 - Lines in first tercet.
a b A1 - Lines in second tercet.
a b A2 - Lines in third tercet.
a b A1 - Lines in fourth tercet.
a b A2 - Lines in fifth tercet.
a b A1 A2 - Lines in final quatrain.

In the above,
o The lines of the first tercet are represented by "A1
b A2", because the first and third lines rhyme and will be
repeated later in the poem.
o The first line of each subsequent stanzas is shown as
"a" because it rhymes with those two lines.
o Meanwhile the second line ("b") is not
repeated but the second line of each subsequent stanzas rhymes with
that line.