Walk on Martin Veltman’s Villanelle

I love poetry on the street. It’s the one place where poems especially belong because everybody can read them and ponder about them. It’s effortless.

I especially love finding poems in my favourite forms, like — the title is a giveaway — this Villanelle by Martin Veltman. The Villanelle is like the sea, it brings back lines that have already been said and takes them away again. But because they are now sitting somewhere else the meaning might alter slightly.

What’s great about this Villanelle is that it suits the location so perfectly. It’s always blowing up here in the north of the Netherlands and the wind goes all around like a villanelle.

Have  you got poems in your town, do you like them? Is there one in particular you like? I’d love to hear in a comment below!