| poems, and has been ever since the first time I read it (which was probably somewhere around high school).
Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! English major blather ahead!
[English major mode: ON] Have to admire Thomas for managing to write something as powerful as that while using the...um, I think it was the villanelle form, which is one of the most torturous forms out there. (The guy who invented the villanelle was a masochist. :) )
(cribbing shamelessly from a poetry site) 19 lines, only 2 allowed rhymes while repeating 2 lines throughout. The first 5 stanzas are triplets, and the last stanza is a quatrain. This results in a rhyme scheme of ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA -- but! the first and third lines from the first stanza are alternately repeated as the final line in each stanza, *and* the last stanza has both lines as the last lines.
And Thomas manages all this and makes it look easy...! *meep*
[English major mode: OFF] | 
