A pleasing permutation of lines -- the Villanelle

     A villanelle is a 19-line French verse form -- with lines divided into five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain -- a poem in which the first and third lines each appear four times.  This thoughtful repetition of lines, each time in a somewhat different context, is very pleasing -- and reminds me of the varied situations in which many mathematical models also are effective
     Well-known villanelles include “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas, and Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art.” (And here is a link to this blog's offerings of villanelles.)   Below are the opening stanzas of a fine villanelle by Emily Grosholz; the entire poem is included in an article in The Mathematical Intelligencer, "Figures of Speech and Figures of Thought" (available here).  The article -- written by Emily Rolfe Grosholz and Edward Rothstein -- is based on an interview of Grosholz at New York City's Poets House and celebrates her book Great Circles -- The Transits of Mathematics and Poetry (Springer, 2018).  

from  Holding Pattern     by Emily Rolfe Grosholz