The villanelle's repetitions make it effective for going around in circles. Dylan Thomas's 1947 "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" repeats imperatives to the poet's father; Elizabeth Bishop's 1976 "One Art" uses them to talk herself into not feeling overwhelmed by loss. Responding to 9/11, Jay Parini's 2002 "After the Terror" saves its imperatives for the beginning of the final quatrain: "Believe in victory and all that jazz. / Believe we're better off, that less is more." The after-effects of 9/11 come up in Tracy K. Smith's 2011 "Solstice", but its single imperative question is not one of the repeated lines: "Remember how they taught you once to pray?" (Andrew Shields, #111words, 31 May 2021)
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| Elizabeth Bishop receiving the Neustadt Prize in 1976 |
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