Read the excerpt from "Parsley” by Rita Dove. 1. The Cane FieldsThere is a parrot imitating springin the palace, its feathers parsley green. Out of the swamp the cane appearsto haunt us, and we cut it down. El General searches for a word; he is all the world there is. Like a parrot imitating spring,we lie down screaming as rain punches through and we come up green. We cannot speak an R—out of the swamp, the cane appearsand then the mountain we call in whispers Katalina.The children gnaw their teeth to arrowheads. There is a parrot imitating spring.El General has found his word: perejil.Who says it, lives. He laughs, teeth shining out of the swamp. The cane appearsin our dreams, lashed by wind and streaming. And we lie down. For every drop of blood there is a parrot imitating spring.Out of the swamp the cane appears.
The poem uses the repeating lines “There is a parrot imitating spring” and “Out of the swamp, the cane appears” as refrains. It also has a patterned rhyme and stanza structure built around those repeated lines, which are key features of a villanelle. Therefore, the correct choice is villanelle.
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