Recently I reread Dylan Thomas’s villanelle “Do not go gentle into that good night” which was written in 1947 for his dying father. Somehow, it touched me much more than when I read it in college, perhaps because I am considerably older. After reading a fair amount of modern free-form poetry, I found great comfort in the repetition, rhyme, and refrain of the villanelle form. At this point, I ran across C.S. Fuqua’s book of poetry, Structured Madness: New Poems in Traditional Formats. Fuqua writes of modern life in the traditional poetic forms, and conveniently lists each form and the requirements to meet that form in an extensive glossary in the back of the book. Some of my favorites include “List”, which is simply an inventory of what’s in a wallet, but which tells a story. His villanelle, “Repossession”, deals with the repossession of a woman’s trailer home. I enjoyed his rhymed free verse “Compact” about a woman’s makeup compact and her son’s feelings when he finds it after her death. Fuqua’s works range from looking at the minuscule (as in “Compact”) to gazing at the universe and eternity with stops along the way to look with some poignancy at life, death, religion, family relationships, and coming of age. In the words of the author, these poems are his “experiment[s] in style and form without indulging in so-called experimental poetry of the day, to craft a poem that sounds poetic,” and certainly succeeds in his goal. An excellent read with poems to savor and read again and again.
An excellent read with poems to savor and read again and again.
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Structured Madness (Tuxtails Publishing, July 16, 2024) is available through:
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