Description: This is my first ever attempt at a villanelle, I think that a different form would have brought more justice to the telling of the disaster, but the task for my creative writing course was to write about a local event in our village in the form of a villanelle. (Even though the villanelle tends to work better for rants :S).
This isn¡¦t really my style, I¡¦m usually better at ballads and story telling, but I seemed to have developed some sort of writers block for the last year or so, so I haven¡¦t been producing work of my usual standard ƒ¼, but I¡¦d like to hear your thoughts.
For those who don¡¦t know about the disaster, what happened was that The National Coal Board placed the coal slurry high on the mountain instead of disposing of it, because it was cheaper, but when it was raining one morning in 1966, the sludge became loose and gushed down the mountain into a primary school and some houses, killing the infants, a few teachers and some inhabitants of the village. Though you¡¦re welcome to look it up for context.
Villanelle of the Aberfan Disaster -------------------------------------------
Hush! Be silent now, the children are asleep
But who here hears their ghostly laughs, from the ones who dare to peep?
Beneath the angels halo in peaceful slumber deep.
Walking hand in hand with mommy, I look up at the heap
Of blackened sludge and slurry piled on the mountain, steep
‘Hush, be silent now, there’s people still asleep.’
Not a bird would sing that morning, not an insect chanced to creep
As into school we marched, each child still half asleep,
For only shortly we’d been woken from our peaceful slumber deep.
Upon the classroom window, I watch the raindrops seep
But there’s a shadow on the mountain – the grimmer come to reap
Hush…there’s silent now…the children are asleep.
The men that put the coal there, had said it would be cheap
But their greed has caused the blood shed, the cries, the screams, the weeps
Beneath the blackened slurry, little bodies buried deep.
Today would be my birthday, though I lie in ageless sleep
Still my daddy brings me flowers, but my teddy bear he keeps.
‘Hush! Be silent now, my Princess is asleep
Beneath the angels halo she’s at rest in slumber deep’.
I LOVE VILLANELLES! I don't think you followed the form exactly, which is totally okay, that's more an observation than a criticism. Have you read Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath? ooohhh! I love villanelles! And yours too! Great words!
Okay sorry, I guess I'll give you a criticism. The phrase "hand with mommy" is not the right tone. It seems almost... too childish. Maybe, with my mother? sounds a little clunky still... But saying mommy almost sounds too halloween creepy. And then juxtasposed that with the almost archaic structure of say, "Beneath the angels halo in peaceful slumber deep." Its a change of narrative voice that can be off-putting. Try to stay in one voice. If you are a child then the first line doesn't fit and so on. Who is the narrator? I guess answer that question for yourself.
So... um... how do I say this... I LOVED IT. Still work to do, but the feeling and the mood and the description and the style... all great.
Submission Name: Villanelle of the Aberfan Disaster
