The book contains 52 poems in villanelle form, with subjects ranging from baseball to love to war. A villanelle is a type of formal poetry, as is a sonnet; but a villanelle is different. Each villanelle has 19 required lines, all in iambic pentameter, with a required rhyme scheme. The first and third lines are repeated throughout the poem. They've got to fit all of their locations, they have to fit the rhyme scheme, and they're the last two lines of the poem, so they've got to be good. It's a difficult form of poetry to write. The most famous villanelle is Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."
