publishing this today:
WHY I like STEPH'S VILLANELLE
Read it first, if you're curious, and then read the extended entry to see my reasons.
One of my favorite elements of literary art is a form that reinforces its content. Ideally, when you're full of content ("with book as a woman is with child," for example), you should deliberately choose a form that will emphasize rather than distract from your subject. Steph came in the back door in a sense, because she knew first that her poem had to be a villanelle in order to meet the specs (she's taking a Poetry Writing class). That being the case, I think she was wise to choose this particular subject matter to fill the demands of the form.
She's dealing with inexplicable behavior, inconsistencies, circular reasoning, transformations, veritable labyrinths of recurring doubts and questions. Like grief does, these keyword phrases come back to haunt. The villanelle form is very much suited to this content.
Secondly, I like the inversion aspect of the eulogies. Typical obits would have the name, age of the deceased listed. There is a progression of thought evoked by the deliberate placement of the names and perspectives. At first, the reader is completely confused about who died, but that is remedied as the reader realizes that only one person truly died in the physical sense -- the one person each stanza has in common. One major point of the poem, however, is that each of these people experienced this one man's death. There are "obituaries" for them all, and the memories (however skewed by their presuppositions and emotions and maturity level) are appropriate, because a part of every one of them died that night.
Finally, I think that Steph drives her point home effectively. It doesn't matter what everyone's perception of you is. And it does. It doesn't matter to you if you are unhappy but they all think you are happy. And yet it matters that they have a perception of you at all -- you cannot help but leave a mark on the lives you touch. In this case, a bittersweet, never-healing scar. And then -- really -- who's happy?