Sestinas

Sestinas

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Elizabeth Bishop's Sestina
www.poemhunter.com/poem/sestina/  

KNOW THE PATTERN. A sestina consists of six sestets (6-line stanzas) and one tercet (3-line stanzas). Each sestet contains the same 6 end-words, but in different a order for each stanza. The final stanza, the tercet, contains 2 "end-words" per line. Following is the pattern for the sestina ==> stanza 1: 1,2,3,4,5,6; stanza 2: 6,1,5,2,4,3; stanza 3: 3,6,4,1,2,5; stanza 4: 5,3,2,6,1,4; stanza 5: 4,5,1,3,6,2; stanza 6: 2,4,6,5,3,1; final stanza: 1&2,3&4,5&6.

2

CHOOSE YOUR 6 WORDS. When deciding on your 6 words, focus on versatility in terms of parts of speech, meaning, and usage. For example, the word "hand" can be a verb or a noun (as in the sentences "Hand me the towel" and "We shook hands," respectively.) "Hand" can be used in idioms (e.g. give me a hand, on the other hand). And finally, "hand" just has a plethora of definitions (e.g. a poker player's cards, a worker).

3

REVIEW & REVISE YOUR 6 WORDS. Are all of your words nouns? Are they all verbs? Do they seem to point to one specific subject matter you're planning to write about? If so, I'd suggest diversifying. Throw some adjectives in there; open a magazine or book, put your finger on the page, and write whatever word it lands on; or add a word that seems completely unrelated to the others.

4

ORGANIZE. Although it might seem tedious to organize ahead of time, it will save you from the grief that comes when realizing you've finally perfected your sestina, but you accidentally messed up the pattern in the third stanza, making the patterns in stanzas 4, 5, 6, and 7, also incorrect. So, on a piece of paper, make 3 columns. The first column is for the number pattern, the second is for the end-words, and the third is for your lines of poetry. If you are staring at a blank computer screen, make a table with 3 columns and 7 rows. Go to your TABLE panel or dropdown, click "Insert Table," and enter the number or columns and rows. (READ STEP 5 before writing the end-words down.)

5

WRITE. There are many ways to start a sestina, so experiment and find what is right for you. As for me, I like starting the first stanza without a particular order in mind for my 6 words. I just make sure one of the 6 words is at the end of each line. Only after writing that first stanza do I fill in my end-word column.

6

USE OTHER DEVICES. Don't let the end-words fool you; they are not necessarily the most important part of the sestina. Don't be afraid to repeat other words, too. This can actually draw some attention away from the end-words, adding a different type of rhythm and also warding off the dreaded monotony that can result from a sestina gone wrong. Enjambment can also create this effect.

7

BE FLEXIBLE. If you are accustomed to writing free verse, the sestina's constraints may seem to take away from what you want to say or what you're trying to do in your poem. However, I suggest that instead of not quite writing the poem you wanted to write, allow yourself to write a different poem than what you'd imagined when you began. There are many surprises to be found when writing in forms.

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Morning News

by Marilyn Hacker

Marilyn Hacker

Spring wafts up the smell of bus exhaust, of bread   

and fried potatoes, tips green on the branches,

repeats old news: arrogance, ignorance, war.

A cinder-block wall shared by two houses

is new rubble. On one side was a kitchen

sink and a cupboard, on the other was

a bed, a bookshelf, three framed photographs.

Glass is shattered across the photographs;

two half-circles of hardened pocket bread

sit on the cupboard. There provisionally was

shelter, a plastic truck under the branches

of a fig tree. A knife flashed in the kitchen,

merely dicing garlic. Engines of war

move inexorably toward certain houses

while citizens sit safe in other houses

reading the newspaper, whose photographs

make sanitized excuses for the war.

There are innumerable kinds of bread

brought up from bakeries, baked in the kitchen:

the date, the latitude, tell which one was

dropped by a child beneath the bloodied branches.

The uncontrolled and multifurcate branches

of possibility infiltrate houses’

walls, windowframes, ceilings. Where there was

a tower, a town: ash and burnt wires, a graph

on a distant computer screen. Elsewhere, a kitchen

table’s setting gapes, where children bred

to branch into new lives were culled for war.

Who wore this starched smocked cotton dress? Who wore

this jersey blazoned for the local branch

of the district soccer team? Who left this black bread

and this flat gold bread in their abandoned houses?

Whose father begged for mercy in the kitchen?

Whose memory will frame the photograph

and use the memory for what it was

never meant for by this girl, that old man, who was

caught on a ball field, near a window: war,

exhorted through the grief a photograph

revives. (Or was the team a covert branch

of a banned group; were maps drawn in the kitchen,

a bomb thrust in a hollowed loaf of bread?)

What did the old men pray for in their houses

of prayer, the teachers teach in schoolhouses

between blackouts and blasts, when each word was

flensed by new censure, books exchanged for bread,

both hostage to the happenstance of war?

Sometimes the only schoolroom is a kitchen.

Outside the window, black strokes on a graph

of broken glass, birds line up on bare branches.

“This letter curves, this one spreads its branches

like friends holding hands outside their houses.”

Was the lesson stopped by gunfire? Was

there panic, silence? Does a torn photograph

still gather children in the teacher’s kitchen?

Are they there meticulously learning war-

time lessons with the signs for house, book, bread?