Villanelle

"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" is a standard villanelle with little to no creativity in its form. It makes for a fine villanelle and a fine read, but I think that second poem, "The Waking",  is more enjoyable. The two repeated lines are "I wake to sleep, and take my walking slow" and "learn by going where to go." The first line is repeated at the end of the second stanza, the end of the fourth stanza, and the almost-end of the sixth stanza. The second line is repeated at the end of stanzas 3, 5, and 6. This poem is an iambic pentameter and I feel as if the ebb and flow of the words helps further Roethke's idea of sleeping and waking (on a very basic level). A part of the form that stuck out to me was the small variation in the repetition of the main lines. "And learn by going where to go" morphs into "and, lovely, learn by going where to go." Although not a large change, I like the variation and it helps signify the beauty in accepting your fate, simply going wherever the world may take you.