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A 2023 Survival Villanelle for Potentially
Contentious Thanksgiving Gatherings

Keep dinner chatter chirrupy and perky.
Don’t prod the pachyderm that plods the room.
Thank your candied yams you’re not a turkey.

Stay cool when you hear tosh that’s crass and quirky,
Like blokes lactate and fellas have a womb.
Keep dinner chatter chirrupy and perky.

Don’t grimace, wince, or get overtly smirky
When tongues grow hot with planet-scorching doom.
Thank your candied yams you’re not a turkey.

Don’t fire the feisty eye of berk or jerk – be
The balm that quells the flare of fools who fume.
Keep dinner chatter chirrupy and perky.

Ignore the roars of bores who swim in murky
Swamps of dogma. Cock deaf ears to gloom.
Thank your candied yams you’re not a turkey.

When vegan kin begin to go berserky
As whiffs of festive fowl waft in a plume,
Keep dinner chatter chirrupy and perky
And thank your candied yams you’re eating turkey.

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Thanksgiving Matters

a rondeau

In troubled times of bleak divide
Where icy rifts grow twice as wide,
To gather is the gift that brings
A blast of warmth from blissful things
No earthly soul should be denied.

To toast and chat sat side by side
With feasting kin all unified
In thanks will give the spirit wings
__In troubled times.

Just as the moon’s bloom turns the tide,
Just as the sun-soaked swallows glide,
Just as the dawn-kissed choir sings,
We’ll dine like kings as laughter rings
And hopes and highs and hearts collide
__In troubled times.

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Susan Jarvis Bryant has poetry published on Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, Sparks of Calliope, and Expansive Poetry Online. She also has poetry published in TRINACRIA, Beth Houston’s Extreme Formal Poems anthology, and in Openings (anthologies of poems by Open University Poets in the UK). Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition, and has been nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize.

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30 Responses

    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Allegra, thank you very much indeed, and a happy Thanksgiving. I hope it’s been chirrupy and perky. 🙂

      Reply
  2. Cynthia Erlandson

    You and your rondeaus are just sublime!
    And, yes, I’m very glad I’m not a turkey.
    Your villanelles are lovely, too. Know I’m
    Hoping your Thanksgiving’s fun and perky!

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Cynthia, I’m thrilled you’ve enjoyed my Thanksgiving offerings and hope you’ve had a wonderful day. In spite of these tough times, we still have an awful lot to be perky about and grateful for, especially on the poetry front.

      Reply
  3. Geoffrey Smagacz

    Your “Survival Villanelle” is a very funny poem with skillful rhymes and alliterations. Turkey is a funny word to begin with, and to be able to find so many clever words to rhyme with it, enhances the humor. Your message is clear: how else can we deal with all this division and yet remain sane.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Geoffrey, thank you very much for your kind words of appreciation. I find the word turkey hilarious… and simply had to have it for its dual meaning, even though the rhymes were a tad challenging. I took a bit of a liberty with “berserky” but as it made me giggle, I thought my readers would join me in a snigger. I believe a sense of humor is a godsend in times like these… and I’m glad you’re smiling along with me.

      Reply
  4. Hari Hyde

    Thanks for this Thanksgiving cheer. “Be
    the balm that quells the flare of fools who fume.” I recalled Proverbs 15:1. A soft answer turns away wrath.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Hari, what a beautiful comment with its wise and wholly appropriate quote from Proverbs. I will remember those words when my feathers get a little ruffled… as they are apt to do in these testing times. Thank you!

      Reply
  5. Norma Pain

    Such wonderful Thanksgiving poetry. “When vegan kin begin to go berserky”, made me laugh. How can one not eat turkey at Thanksgiving? Thank you Susan, for these deliciously delightful poems.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Norma, it’s always lovely to hear from you. I am so glad you appreciate my berserky line… just like a bad comedian laughing at his own jokes, I was laughing out loud as I was writing that one. Thank you for kind comments. I know you have already celebrated Thanksgiving. I hope it was a good one!

      Reply
  6. Satyananda Sarangi

    Susan ma’am,

    The first poem’s a delicacy and my mouth is already watering. The rondeau here reminded me of Alfred Austin’s “Is Life Worth Living?”.

    Marvelously done.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Satyananda, thank you very much for your generous comment. I will admit to having to look up Alfred Austin’s poem… how marvelous and oh so very British with its patriotic nod at the end. I can see how my rondeau has a joyous feel invested in all those wondrous and traditional aspects of our culture. I thoroughly appreciate your close reading and the comparison.

      Reply
  7. Margaret Coats

    Hope you had a perky Thanksgiving dinner with chirrupy conversation, Susan. The high temperature of planet-scorching doom shows how well the villanelle is put together; it suits the turkey refrain. And that turkey refrain is the one to get properly modified when you consider vegans.

    The serious refrain befits the rondeau topic. You probably mean birds as the “dawn-kissed choir,” but I thought of my sunrise singers for 6:30 am Saturday Mass. We smile for hymns that contain a verse or two for the hour of the day, as I do for these poems.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Margaret, thank you very much for your kind comment. I’m thrilled my “dawn-kissed choir” put you in mind of your sunrise singers… how wonderful to be singing hymns at the same time as the dawn chorus in a world full of the marvels of God created. You have conjured a beautiful picture in my head. I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving.

      Reply
  8. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Your survival villanelle is a delicious appetizer for Thanksgiving replete with Britishisms that entice and amplify treatment of discourse around the dinner table and in the living room. Family gatherings can be fun forums for observations on such occasions. Your splendid “Thanksgiving Matters” is a reminder of why we celebrate on that day as a respite from “troubled times.”

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Roy, thank you very much for reading and commenting on my poetry. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I always smile when I am told of my Britishisms… I have reached a point where I no longer spot them. I have begun to speak a rather strange language whereby my accent doesn’t match the phrases I’m saying, which are often Texan with the odd British word slipping in here and there. I think I speak TexLish, and only hope it works with the poetry. 🙂

      Reply
  9. Joseph S. Salemi

    Susan, I have heard of a “Mid-Atlantic accent,” which develops when an American student goes to the U.K. to study for some years, and then returns home with a mix of British intonation and usage in his American speech. I didn’t believe it at first, but one of my professors in graduate school (Robert Raymo) had exactly that accent. He had studied in England for several years, and had married an Englishwoman before returning to the States.

    It also happens in reverse! The actor Scott Forbes (who played the southern hero Jim Bowie in a 1950s TV series) was an Englishman by birth, and had attended university as a Classics major — one couldn’t get more plummy British than that, could one? But he came to the U.S. and landed the role of Jim Bowie, and since he had married an American girl who had been a beauty queen from Alabama, she coached him in Deep-South dialect and accent. Forbes became letter-perfect in the idiom, and we all thought that he had been born and bred well south of the Mason-Dixon line.

    Small note: In line 4 of your poem, should the word “cack” be “crack”?

    Reply
    • Julian D. Woodruff

      I think you must be right, Joseph, about “cack.” But I learned a new word: it means infant’s soft-healed shoe, according to dictionary.com. And “berk”” as well: British slang for stupid person.

      Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Joe, how interesting! I love these stories. They go a long way towards explaining my own strange changes. I speak with an English accent, apart from losing a few tees here and there, as in the word “better”… BUT, my Texanisms are rife – man instead of gosh, y’all, etc., phrases like, “that’ll work”, “we’re fixin’ to find out”, and I cannot believe I use the word “pretty” (only used to describe flowers, frilly outfits, and girls in England) for cars and houses! My British kin look at me in shock… and I’m not even aware until I see that “look” that I’m doing it.

      “Cack” means rubbish/nonsense in the UK. I think it would be worth my while to change it… I don’t like it when words detract from the message, and I fear that one does. Thank you!

      Reply
  10. Julian D. Woodruff

    Fun villanelle, Susan.
    No boring kin this year, not even by phone:
    Thanksgiving my wife and I spent all alone.
    And I’m glad for a poem that places faith in laughter. It seems poetry and faith in laughter is a rather rare mix these days.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Julian, I always enjoy your comments, especially rhyming ones. Thank you! Your Thanksgiving sounds as if it was a strife-free, joyous success – I’m glad you had a good one!

      Reply
  11. Mark Stellinga

    Hi Susan, after looking this one up, I see you got it right –

    cack
    noun
    Human excrement: usually in the plural.
    A shoemakers’ name for an infant’s shoe.
    A squawk.

    Your phenomenal vocabulary embarrasses mine!
    As your pieces assert, Thanksgiving is critical for bringing & holding families and friends together, especially now. We have only ONE naive’ lefty in our family group, but we all simply ignore it when we gather for holiday feastings. Connie cooked for 22 this year and will do the same for Christmas. Excellent poems, both, and unfamiliar words and terms are a necessary component of top-notch poetry (though I use very few myself because I KNOW very few!) 🙂

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Wow, Mark! What a big and busy Thanksgiving you had, and I agree, “Thanksgiving is critical for bringing & holding families and friends together, especially now.” It’s not until we gather to celebrate all those things we should be grateful for (including each other) that we realize just what we have to lose by letting our corrupt governments tear us apart… or, am I too optimistic… are the rifts to raw to heal for many? I’m glad you had a good day, Mark. Thank you for your lovely comment.

      Reply
  12. Brian A. Yapko

    Sorry to be so late to the Thanksgiving feast, Susan! I love both poems and am dazzled as every by your mastery of these demanding forms. Your “turkey” rhymes have me rolling on the floor and your rondeau has me both a little troubled (to match the times) and a bit misty-eyed with nostalgia to think that — although it’s a longshot — the type of generosity among people across the divide might still be possible. Wonderful work and I hope that you and Mike had an equally wonderful Thanksgiving!

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Brian, I’m thrilled you enjoyed my turkey rhymes… I was laughing as I wrote this one. And, like you, I’m hoping minds and hearts can meet, especially at times invested in gratitude for all we have, including our families… warts and all. Thank you very much indeed!

      Reply
  13. Carey Jobe

    Two wonderful Thanksgiving poems, Susan. The images are well chosen and brought the scene close to home. Hard to pick one over the other, but the villanelle just brims with wry humor. Had to laugh–yes, the holiday season is also a time to forgive many of those we love.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Carey, I know that you’re a master of the villanelle form, so thank you for your kind words on mine. Laughter was my aim… there is too much misery in this wicked world at the moment and if we cannot spare the time to stop and laugh at how crazy the human race has become, there’s no hope for a relatively sane future. Forgiveness is a tough one… but, I believe it’s the key to one’s own peace and joy, and boy, we could all do with a bit of joy at the moment. Carey, thank you!

      Reply
  14. Joshua C. Frank

    The second is good, but it’s the first I love. I laughed out loud a few times! My favorite part is the “berserky” rhyme; it reminds me of Berkeley, California, rightly being called “Berserkley.”

    That being said, I’m afraid the days when we could “keep dinner chatter chirrupy and perky” are long gone. Now that the left is pushing the agenda that Hamas was justified in slaughtering children and the elderly in Israel, I think we’re at a point where silence is consent. If the left’s appalling response doesn’t make a person see them as pure evil, nothing will.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      I’m glad I made you laugh, Josh. Laughter is indeed medicine for the soul in a berserky world. I believe there’s still hope… and it starts at the family dinner table… that forum of ideas that shapes future outcomes. Free speech is limited in the big arena… I think the family dinner table may be our only hope. Many a world problem was solved over roast beef and Yorkshire puds at my grandparents’ house… and many an idiot was put in their place by cutting words of wisdom. I had my say around the family dinner table on a recent visit to the UK, and I was listened to with interest and respect by those whose views differed a couple of years ago… I’m hopeful.

      Reply

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