In my high school Creative Writing classes, we don’t get into forms until the last month of the semester. Most of these students haven’t written poetry before, so first I want them to focus on being emotionally honest and telling their stories without any limitations.
When we do start learning forms, I teach them in a low-pressure way that hopefully makes students excited, not frustrated, about trying them. Villanelles intimidate them the most, so this year I came up with a lesson for “group villanelles,” and it was such a hit!
Everyone writes what they think would be a good first line for a poem. The class votes on the one we like best, and that becomes the first line. We do that with the second line, and this time the only requirement is that it not rhyme with the previous line. Again, we vote. Then we come up with a bunch of lines that rhyme with our first line (A) and our second (B) and put the poem together. Here’s one I especially love:
Love Poem
Roses are red, violets are blue—
that’s how these things are supposed to start, right?
Maybe clichés are all we know how to do.Sometimes expectations can block our view
like how the clouds block the stars at night.
Roses are red, violets are blue—what can we say? We have no clue.
We keep these traditions out of spite.
Maybe traditions are all we know how to do.I’m trying to say I love you,
like in that letter I wrote that took all night.
Roses are red, violets are blue…So what should I do? Start brand new?
Everything isn’t so black and white.
Maybe shades of gray is all we know how to do.My favorite story ends with you,
so in the end, everything will be all right.
My poems are clichés, roses red and violets blue,
but loving you is one thing I know how to do.
It’s funny that this ended up being my favorite, because I was nervous when the class voted on that first line. I’ll tell you a secret: the second line is mine, as I thought that was one way to make the first line do something new. The class voted on my line just as they voted on the others, so I think they latched on to the idea of writing a meta poem about subverting expectations in a love poem. The rest of the lines are theirs, though I did show them how we could vary the repeated lines to reinforce what we were saying at different points.
They were so proud of this poem and even asked if we could try to publish it. And after we wrote it, some students chose to write villanelles on their own, which makes me happy beyond measure.
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Melissa Fite Johnson is the author of Green (Riot in Your Throat, 2021) and While the Kettle’s On (Little Balkans Press, 2015), a Kansas Notable Book. She is also the author of A Crooked Door Cut into the Sky (Paper Nautilus Press, 2018), winner of the Vella Chapbook Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, Pleiades, The Ilanot Review, SWWIM, and elsewhere. Melissa teaches high school English in Lawrence, KS, where she and her husband live with their dogs.