Les Barricades Mysterieuses: thirty-two villanelles

"A villanelle, like a fugue, a charcoal sketch, or a pas de deux, is a study in contrasts -- figure shading into ground, contrary motion constantly rediscovering its theme. Drawn into the villanelle's world, reader and listener cease to remember that it is a formal poem, an intricately wrought and highly repetetive verbal artifact. In a sequence of such poems, the rhymes and recurring lines may be likened to the corridors of a labyrinth, a trail through a snowy woods, or a road that beckons to the pilgrim. Those who continue along these paths will gradually find themselves -- in poetic terms and perhaps in other ways as well -- caught up, engaged in a different kind of journey."