The villanelle has a reputation. Mention it at a poetry workshop and you will get one of two reactions: a wistful sigh, or a quiet groan from someone who has spent three evenings hunting for a rhyme for "orange" (good luck with that one). Yet the form is not a cage. It is a set of tracks that can carry a poem further than you would manage alone. Once you understand how the repeating lines work, writing a villanelle becomes less like solving a puzzle and more like conducting a small orchestra.
The shape of a villanelle
A villanelle is nineteen lines long: five tercets (three-line stanzas) followed by a closing quatrain (four lines). It uses just two rhymes across the whole poem, and two lines repeat as refrains.
Number the lines and the pattern looks like this:
- Lines 1, 6, 12 and 18 are the same line (the first refrain).
- Lines 3, 9, 15 and 19 are the same line (the second refrain).
- The rhyme scheme is aba for each tercet, then abaa for the quatrain.
So the opening tercet sets everything: line 1 (A1), line 2 (b), line 3 (A2). From there, each tercet ends on one of your refrains, alternating them until the quatrain closes with both.
Those repetitions are not decoration. They are the engine. The art lies in making the same words mean something slightly different each time they return.
Choose two refrains that can argue with each other
Everything starts here, so give it time. Your first refrain is the claim, image or observation the poem keeps returning to. Your second should complicate it, answer it, or undercut it. If the pair simply agrees with itself, the poem will run out of momentum by the third stanza.
Start with a line you could say out loud. Then write a second line that pulls against it. A villanelle about a house move might open with "The house still holds the shape of us" and answer with "I pack the rooms I cannot leave." One line is assertion; the other is resistance. That friction gives you somewhere to go.
The refrains must rhyme with each other, so test the pair early. If one ends in a sound with very few partners in English, save yourself the heartache and rework it now.
Build a rhyme chart before you write
Two rhymes across nineteen lines is tight. The -ight family is generous; the -or sound is not. Before drafting, list every usable rhyme for each sound and keep the list beside you. When you find yourself reaching for a word you would never say aloud, the list will remind you of better options.
You may also vary meaning rather than word. Repeating "light" as a noun, then a verb, then part of a phrase, keeps the sound while shifting the sense. That is one of the form's quiet pleasures.
Remember that rhyme is a matter of sound, not spelling: "love" and "move" chime; "bough" and "rough" do not. If you are ever unsure how a word is said, check a dictionary with pronunciation guidance rather than guessing.
Metre: keep a steady pulse, then earn your variations
Traditionally, a villanelle is written in iambic pentameter: five beats per line, each a light stress followed by a heavy one, as in "The house still holds the shape of us." It is not compulsory. Tetrameter (four beats) can work beautifully, and many contemporary poets write in loose metre with a consistent syllable count.
What matters is consistency. A reader should feel a reliable pulse, because the refrains depend on it. Once that pulse is established, a short line lands like a slammed door.
Read every line aloud. If you stumble, the metre is probably asking you to force a stress onto a word that does not want one, such as "the" or "and". Rewrite rather than push.
A drafting sequence that actually works
- Write the two refrains and check that they rhyme and that they can hold a conversation.
- Draft the rhyme chart for both sounds.
- Write tercet two (lines 4-6), ending on the first refrain.
- Write tercet three (lines 7-9), ending on the second refrain.
- Continue alternating, stopping after each stanza to read the whole poem aloud.
- Draft the quatrain last, bringing both refrains home.
- Leave it overnight, then cut every word that is only there to fill the metre.
Expect a weak stage. Most villanelles look clumsy until stanza four, and some only click in revision. Resist the urge to abandon the draft before the refrains have had a chance to change meaning.
Common traps, and how to sidestep them
- Filler rhymes. If a line exists only to reach a sound, cut it and rebuild the stanza.
- Refrains that never shift. By the final quatrain, the repeated lines should carry the weight of everything said between them.
- Forced archaism. "Doth", "oft" and inverted syntax rarely improve a poem written in 2025.
- A tidy moral. Villanelles work best when they circle an obsession rather than resolve it.
- Rushing the quatrain. The last four lines are the destination; give them a whole session if needed.
A short example to study
Here is one in tetrameter, with the refrains marked.
I keep the light on in the hall. (A1)
The town is sleeping, street by street. (b)
Some things are meant to hear us call. (A2)I stack the post against the wall (a)
and leave the kettle on to heat. (b)
I keep the light on in the hall. (A1)The garden takes the rainfall, all (a)
the roses drinking something sweet. (b)
Some things are meant to hear us call. (A2)
Notice what the refrains are doing. The first is a promise, the second almost a superstition, and each return adds a little more longing. The rhyme sounds are simple, which is deliberate: difficult rhymes in a repeating form quickly become exhausting.
Your first villanelle: a practical checklist
Choose a subject you can approach from several angles. A person, a place, a recurring argument, a season. Write the refrains first, sleep on them, then draft in one sitting so the voice stays consistent. Keep a tally of your rhymes as you go. Read the poem aloud at the end and listen for the moment a refrain stops being repetition and starts being revelation.
When it is finished, leave it for a week. Then cut ten per cent. Villanelles are dense by nature, so every spare word costs you a beat. Read established villanelles closely, such as Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" or Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", and note how often the refrains change meaning. Then, when the draft is as clear as you can make it, send it somewhere. A UK poetry magazine or a trusted workshop group is a good first reader.
Photo: StockSnap / Pixabay