The standard villanelle consists of five stanzas of three lines each rhyming a-b-a and a sixth stanza of four lines rhyming a-b-a-a, giving a total of nineteen lines. The first line of the first stanza is reused as the third line of stanzas two, four, and six. The third line of the first stanza is reused as the third line of stanzas three and five and as the fourth line of the sixth stanza.Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" is one of the most famous English villanelles. It begins,
Do not go gentle into that good night,(Click here for the rest of the poem.)
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
One of the great things about literature is that there's a parody for just about everything. Here's a nice parody of Thomas's villanelle. It's entitled "Do Not Go Gentle When You Merge From The Right!" and starts like this:
Do not go gentle when you merge from the right!Here's the complete poem.
Cars should accelerate as they make the turn;
Merge, surge into traffic -- do it right!
You've seen them in Peter Jackson's filming of 
On April 21st, as part of the campus wide 
Dana is a true scholar. Rob Stothart says that the notes Dana takes in class could serve as the study guide for everyone else. It is Dana's writing that particularly sets him apart. He had a paper on the poetry of Li-Young Lee published in last year's issue of Writing in the Academic World, the college's online academic magazine, and, this year, he will have four of his own poems (more than any other single individual) published in Visualize/Verbalize, the college's literary magazine. In addition, Dana often reads his poems at the division's First Friday poetry readings, and he is a member of Another Genre, the division's literary club.
As a freshman, under the "gentle" encouragment of Kathy Bieke, Jeff became an English major, and he took to it like Shakespeare took to the theatre, like Melville took to whales, and like Thoreau took to the woods. His own writing has progressed to the point that Renee Dechert says that his capstone project could be the "first chapter of his dissertation." He has also turned out to be a terrific teacher, tutoring in the Writing Center several hours a week. He is the tutor that students ask for more than any other. Through a program that Carol Zawacki offers, he is now also a nationally certified tutor. As if that weren't enough, Jeff also tutors or has tutored in math, biology, history, Spanish, and public speaking. Additionally, he's a member of the Student Senate, and he's a husband and the father of two girls. We don't know how he does it, but we will miss him a lot.
On this day--April 15--in 1755, Dr. Samuel Johnson published his 
While on sabbatical this semester, Harriet Bloom-Wilson, Assistant Professor of French and International Student Academic Advisor, continued her international recruiting travels for Northwest. Here are a few email excerpts from her travels abroad.
Posts
ms.dsk is reading 
Rob Koelling is reading 
S. Renee Dechert is reading 
Mary Ellen Ibarra-Robinson is reading 
Bill Hoagland is reading 
Jennifer Sheridan is reading 
Robyn Glasscock is reading poetry by 
Susan Watkins is reading