_____ _            __     ___ _ _                  _ _
|_   _| |__   ___   \ \   / (_) | | __ _ _ __   ___| | | ___
  | | | '_ \ / _ \   \ \ / /| | | |/ _` | '_ \ / _ \ | |/ _ \
  | | | | | |  __/    \ V / | | | | (_| | | | |  __/ | |  __/
  |_| |_| |_|\___|     \_/  |_|_|_|\__,_|_| |_|\___|_|_|\___|

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~ a meditation on form and obsession ~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The Villanelle Generator

A procedurally generated villanelle on the theme of memory. These are not Dylan Thomas—no algorithm could be—but they follow his form.

night
time
memory
love
nature
loss
hope
wandering
When stories retold change, I know the fast The stories retold change fades in the refined And what haunts now will always mind Though touch recalls the lost through the contrast We learn to let the photographs grow sepia find When stories retold change, I know the fast What seems so contrast might come to outcast And every voices echo still will haunts and behind And what haunts now will always mind The fast holds more than meets the eye While something fades in the mind When stories retold change, I know the fast We cannot know how contrast will try To shape what haunts beneath the refined And what haunts now will always mind So when the stories retold change fades by And stories retold change haunts in the find When stories retold change, I know the fast And what haunts now will always mind

Seed a Villanelle

Enter any word to generate a unique villanelle:

About Generated Villanelles

These villanelles are assembled from word banks themed to their subject matter. Each theme contains ten rhyming words for the 'a' sound, ten for the 'b' sound, ten images, and ten verbs. The generator constructs refrains and fills in the tercets according to the traditional pattern.

The results are imperfect by design—no algorithm can match human craft. But they demonstrate the form's structure and might spark your own attempts.