Jan, you mentioned a class or two ago that you wondered whether you were making things too hard since there weren't that many submissions for some of the forms. My response was that I thought you were explaining things very clearly. I still think that, but some of the forms THEMSELVES are just hard.
Since there are not many poems posted yet this week--but the ones that are posted are WONDERFUL--I will post an old one of mine. If I get time later to do a new one, I will.
In the broken record department, this is my villenelle from my old
Summerentry:
First Kisses at Thirteen (1964)
I met you at the summer’s height.
I thrilled at every bright long day
And cherished every too short night.
The maiden and her shining knight:
Sir Galahad—I’ll always say
I met you at the summer’s height.
Each day my hope of love grew bright.
At dusk two children stole away
And cherished every too short night,
Your hand found mine ’neath pale moonlight,
As much a child as on the day
I met you at the summer’s height.
One night you turned and held me tight.
’Twas then I gave my heart away
And cherished every too short night.
Next night your lips brushed mine so slight.
“O, let him kiss me more,” I prayed.
I met you at the summer’s height
And cherished every too short night.
I don't have a lot to say about how I proceeded beyond what others have said about how they proceeded: pick words with lots of rhymes!
I can add just this. If you read the Summer entry, you will see that part of what I tried to do with the cycle was make the first poem (which was the villanelle) be the longest. That put me onto the idea of the "height of summer." I couldn't use summer, bummer, dumber (!); so I switched to "summer's height" and could use all those good rhymes. The idea of days and nights gave we another word with lots of rhymes. The next biggest problem was portraying the right sense of innocence, both age-wise and stage-of-relationship-wise. Early drafts missed the mark, but I THINK the language of children/child and "lips so slight" (the reality) vs. maiden and knight/"kiss me more" (the fantasy) struck the note I was going for.