Sestinas!

[ClassyGirl]

I find the sestina to be one of the most challenging but also one of the coolest forms of poetry. I've written one, and can't decide whether to share it or not...

In case you didn't know, a sestina is a 39 line poem, broken up into six stanzas of six lines each and a tercet at the end (the tercet is optional). The tricky part is that each line ends with one of the same 6 words. So what you do is, pick six words that you will be able to use in many different ways. Label them words 1-6. In my sestina, I used the words box, past, paper, lines, hearts, and words. So for example, the word past can be used in a lot of different ways. In one stanza, I ended with the word "encompassed" which sounds like past. In another stanza, I ended with "passed" and in another, "passing." Same with the word line. I used line, lining, and lines. The hardest part, if you choose to write it, would be the tercet, because you have to use all six words in three lines.

It's not as hard as i'm making it sound, actually. Once you've got words picked out that you might want to use (some people don't do that, and just let the poem sort of write itself for the first stanza then go with it from there), here's the order you must use them in:

1 2 3 4 5 6 - End words of lines in first sestet.
6 1 5 2 4 3 - End words of lines in second sestet.
3 6 4 1 2 5 - End words of lines in third sestet.
5 3 2 6 1 4 - End words of lines in fourth sestet.
4 5 1 3 6 2 - End words of lines in fifth sestet.
2 4 6 5 3 1 - End words of lines in sixth sestet.
(6 2) (1 4) (5 3) - Middle and end words of lines in tercet.

Here's an actual sestina:

Your entry was not accepted. We regret
it wasn't (enough for us), a work of love.
We liked many of the colors on the whole
but the mass was just something unrelated
to the rest of our show. We hope your work
will have a bright future in another place.

We remember last year you tried to place
another photograph and it was also with regret
we turned you down. Though for that particular work
we found nothing about it (no one could) to love.
It was obscure and a little upsetting in relation
to the rest of our show which we look on as a whole.

Now you may think us ungenerous. On the whole
you are probably right, but this is our place
and we can do what we want whether you relate
to it or not. However we don't want you to regret
your association with us. We want you to love
us, send us money, but please, no more work.

You see right now we need money to work
on the building we're in. There's a hole
in the roof and one wall needs all the love
and attention it can get. Really the place
needs so much, which all costs. I regret
to remind you we need more space for related

works. We're trying to expand and relate
to lots of different kinds of work
so different people won't regret
their visit with us but will see the whole
beauty and tranquillity of the place
and come with us, a journey of love

where people of all races, colors, and creeds love
to look and bask and of course bring relations,
friends, and lovers. All are welcome to our place
here where all the world's magnificent work
can be shown in its entirety, the whole
place filled - with your exception, we regret.

We know you'll love the whole
work we're doing for this place.
We can't relate enough our regret.


I hope that makes sense! Sestinas are really fun. You guys should write some and post them.

 

[Angeline]

Is that one you wrote? It's really clever!

I wrote this one five or six years ago. I tried to have it rhyme and be in pentameter though I know I screwed up on the stresses in a bunch of places so I can't really call it iambic pentameter. I've written a few of them but they are hella work and I prefer to write free verse most of the time.

We've had a few sestina challenges here. I know others here have written them and I believe one person here is working on one now.



Seeker's Sesto
byAngeline©

One window yields hard frost to spring in time,
like wells ring water in mirrors of hope
and warming rain breaks through a wintry clime,
passing remorse over a sunny slope.
The open glass bids peace to drift from skies,
settling dawn to melt my frozen sighs.

My years have passed in a melange of sighs.
I do not count the days nor keep the time,
but dream instead against the changing skies,
and set the world into a frame of hope,
not mindful of the way events can slope,
casting dreamers into a colder clime.

When heedless thoughts conjure a sun swept clime,
measuring faith against fractions of sighs,
my dreams of spring carpet a rocky slope,
ascending unaware of passing time,
focusing only on the future’s hope,
as if petals portended brighter skies.

Dreamers forgo the world for signs in skies,
challenging stars to yield a different clime
in constellations that bridge wish to hope,
as if the night might blanket all one’s sighs
like mother rocks her child through dark time
to quell the darkest soul from travail’s slope.

Like Yeats on seeing swans wing past Coole’s slope,
I know years arcing in avian skies,
and measure wing beats to the press of time,
advancing unperturbed by age’s clime,
whooshing the wind away in careworn sighs,
turning my face upward in faceless hope.

I counter pain thus through prisms of hope,
sliding past age on my life’s slipping slope
to recall trials with the barest sighs,
and pull my dreams down from the darkling skies,
searching the stars for comfort’s warmer clime,
passing in years of optimistic time.

Dreams sleep safely under hopeful skies,
petals open dispelling changing clime
in starry nights alighting paths of time.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Here's one -

Sweet Scarecrow

What have
we come
to now?
You crow
to me
helpless love

but love
must have
left me.
Please come
and crow
more, now.

Right now
call, love,
eat crow.
I’ll have
you come,
for me.

Use me
for now,
sweetly come
skinny love.
I’ll have
my scarecrow.

Black crow
haunts me,
you have
control now,
my love,
so come.

I come
soft crow-
ing love
take me,
for now.
We have

years we two, you and me,
sweet scarecrow, grasp it now
for we have love. “Indeed we have.”

Written in 2010.

 

[vrosej10]

Dudes and Dudettes, I am just so impressed by people who can write in form. This is not something that I have mastered...

 

[ClassyGirl]

I love sestinas. Okay, I suppose i'll post mine now.

Sestina of the Past

today I took out the little pink box
where lurks all the fleeting feelings of my past-
dirty, smudged, cleverly folded yellowing paper
where pubescent lovesick boys scribbled lines
insisting infatuation and how their hearts
had never felt this way before- their words

I've hoarded like a magpie, with the words
"sentimental value" turning in my head as I box
up the notes that, at one time, turned my heart
to mush as I cooed over declarations that encompassed
every corny love song ever written. and the thin blue lines
have faded, along with pencil marks on the paper

that i'll probably save until i'm old and that paper
resembles my skin, wrinkled and thin, with words
so faint, they're indistinguishable. there's a lining
of postcards, pressed pennies, little pebbles in the box,
tidbits that i've dreamed my grandchildren will say: these are passed
down from my grandma's childhood! my silly heart-

aches will be saved, but my first real, hearty,
tender swelling love has no paper
tokens to memorialize it, because the past
means as little to you as when I say the words
"I'm sorry." but when I will think of you, a music box
will play Chet Baker in my head; maybe a line

from "look for the silver lining"
or "there will never be another you" (learned by heart),
and i'll never be able to wrap those nicely and put them in the box
with the others. you know, on paper,
you look terribly unkind. but you have my word
that when our love has passed

away into sepia-toned memory and in passing
thought you cross my mind, all the lines
you didn't drop will still be ingrained, word-
perfect, by music into my heart,
and what was never put down on paper
will go straight into my mind, the lockbox.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I've got one on the go at the moment but my trouble is I get bored halfway through! Here's one of mine

Picture of a Prison Cell

There's ghosties coming from the cigarettes
see them all caspian and dance across the room
filtering through the heavy metal bars to escape
like a picture show that is going too slow.
My Momma said there'd soon be a load of trouble
she was always so damn right, never been wrong.

Now I'm not wanting you to be getting me wrong,
Have you brought me any of those cigarettes?
It wasn't me who wanted to make all this trouble
Momma she would have that photography room,
I've always been what you might call a bit slow
But there come times you just got to escape.

Up on the hills loving with Bobby is my escape
don't you try to tell me were doing anything wrong
Bobby was good at taking it really nice and slow
afterwards we'd share us a few cigarettes.
When it got colder we started to use my room
Guess that's what they call getting into trouble.

I've got a little brother, now he's the trouble
sneaking round the house when we had no escape
should have known to stay out of his sisters room
if anyone it was always him in the wrong
wouldn't leave when we offered cigarettes.
left there at a run, from the bed we were too slow.

Bobby said not to worry got to take it slow
we could sort it so there'd be no more trouble
He'd got just the thing some herbal cigarettes,
sure made me feel good like a real escape,
for us, not for my brother he did us wrong,
So we lay and planned everything in my room.

The easy part was luring him to the darkroom
took ages to stop wriggling that was the trouble
and when he went down he squashed my cigarettes!
Mamma found the photo before we could escape,
couldn't she see pictures of naked folks was wrong?
So you started asking me questions in this room.

Yes sir it was wrong for him to cause this trouble,
in this room time goes much too slow, where's Bobby?
He's gone?! Did he escape to go get my cigarettes?

 

[Angeline]

I doubt I'll try another one; they really aren't my thing but I'm impressed by others' in this thread (especially that really spare one Tess wrote: that is a way to approach a sestina that has never occurred to me).

UYS, I started writing one about Boadicea around a year ago, but the topic was so big and the process so demanding (I was trying to rhyme and do iambs again), that I gave up on it. But maybe I'll try a jazz one sometime.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

I found a sestina in that two or three word style in a book of poetry - can't for the life of me remember which now - and wanted to try it for ever. Lauren's challenge spurred me. It didn't hurt, much.

I also have one about the opening up of the American west but it too is too big - suffering from too much info.....

 

[Angeline]

I found a sestina in that two or three word style in a book of poetry - can't for the life of me remember which now - and wanted to try it for ever. Lauren's challenge spurred me. It didn't hurt, much.

I also have one about the opening up of the American west but it too is too big - suffering from too much info.....

I so understand! Big idea + complicated form = big headache to me.

 

[ClassyGirl]

That sestina I posted in the first post wasn't mine, by the way, it was just one I found on a random website.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I doubt I'll try another one; they really aren't my thing but I'm impressed by others' in this thread (especially that really spare one Tess wrote: that is a way to approach a sestina that has never occurred to me).

UYS, I started writing one about Boadicea around a year ago, but the topic was so big and the process so demanding (I was trying to rhyme and do iambs again), that I gave up on it. But maybe I'll try a jazz one sometime.

Anyone that writes a rhyming sestina is either a genius or not all there

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

I found a sestina in that two or three word style in a book of poetry - can't for the life of me remember which now - and wanted to try it for ever. Lauren's challenge spurred me. It didn't hurt, much.

I also have one about the opening up of the American west but it too is too big - suffering from too much info.....

After I wrote this I searched until I found that sestina and I did it!!! even if it did take me several lovely hours rifling through my poetry books.

by Bruce Meyer
(1957)

The Lovers Sestina

Am I
this song
celebrating you,
each drawn
breath praising
the world?

The world
that I
know praising
with song
is drawn
loving you.

Are you
the world
completely drawn,
all I
am, song
for praising?

This praising
that you
call song
is world
enough, I
am drawn,

slowly drawn
to praising
when I
love: you,
the world.
becoming song,

simple song
simply drawn,
a world
where praising
canticles you,
declaring I

am alive, a song of you
drawn from praising
all I know of the world.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

After I wrote this I searched until I found that sestina and I did it!!! even if it did take me several lovely hours rifling through my poetry books.

by Bruce Meyer
(1957)

The Lovers Sestina

Am I
this song
celebrating you,
each drawn
breath praising
the world?

The world
that I
know praising
with song
is drawn
loving you.

Are you
the world
completely drawn,
all I
am, song
for praising?

This praising
that you
call song
is world
enough, I
am drawn,

slowly drawn
to praising
when I
love: you,
the world.
becoming song,

simple song
simply drawn,
a world
where praising
canticles you,
declaring I

am alive, a song of you
drawn from praising
all I know of the world.

Trying to do one like that (now I've got two sestinas on the go sigh!) and it's not easy! I think I must be putting words in that are too hard to place

 

[Tzara]

Anyone that writes a rhyming sestina is either a genius or not all there

Sestina
Algernon Charles Swinburne

I saw my soul at rest upon a day
...As a bird sleeping in the nest of night,
Among soft leaves that give the starlight way
...To touch its wings but not its eyes with light;
So that it knew as one in visions may,
...And knew not as men waking, of delight.

This was the measure of my soul’s delight;
...It had no power of joy to fly by day,
Nor part in the large lordship of the light;
...But in a secret moon-beholden way
Had all its will of dreams and pleasant night,
...And all the love and life that sleepers may.

But such life’s triumph as men waking may
...It might not have to feed its faint delight
Between the stars by night and sun by day,
...Shut up with green leaves and a little light;
Because its way was as a lost star’s way,
...A world’s not wholly known of day or night.

All loves and dreams and sounds and gleams of night
...Made it all music that such minstrels may,
And all they had they gave it of delight;
...But in the full face of the fire of day
What place shall be for any starry light,
...What part of heaven in all the wide sun’s way?

Yet the soul woke not, sleeping by the way,
...Watched as a nursling of the large-eyed night,
And sought no strength nor knowledge of the day,
...Nor closer touch conclusive of delight,
Nor mightier joy nor truer than dreamers may,
...Nor more of song than they, nor more of light.

For who sleeps once and sees the secret light
...Whereby sleep shows the soul a fairer way
Between the rise and rest of day and night,
...Shall care no more to fare as all men may,
But be his place of pain or of delight,
...There shall he dwell, beholding night as day.

Song, have thy day and take thy fill of light
...Before the night be fallen across thy way;
Sing while he may, man hath no long delight.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Strewth!

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Strewth!

Carefully chosen rhyming words............

 

[Tzara]

I found a sestina in that two or three word style in a book of poetry - can't for the life of me remember which now - and wanted to try it for ever.

My favorite sestina:

Six Words
Lloyd Schwartz

yes
no
maybe
sometimes
always
never

Never?
Yes.
Always?
No.
Sometimes?
Maybe—

maybe
never
sometimes.
Yes—
no
always:

always
maybe.
No—
never
yes.
Sometimes,

sometimes
(always)
yes.
Maybe
never . . .
No,

no—
sometimes.
Never.
Always?
Maybe.
Yes—

yes no
maybe sometimes
always never.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

My favorite sestina:

Six Words
Lloyd Schwartz

yes
no
maybe
sometimes
always
never

Never?
Yes.
Always?
No.
Sometimes?
Maybe—

maybe
never
sometimes.
Yes—
no
always:

always
maybe.
No—
never
yes.
Sometimes,

sometimes
(always)
yes.
Maybe
never . . .
No,

no—
sometimes.
Never.
Always?
Maybe.
Yes—

yes no
maybe sometimes
always never.

fabulous!

 

[sweepthefloor]

I enjoyed all of these! I will write one!

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

My favorite sestina:

Six Words
Lloyd Schwartz

.

i suppose this should be heard recited (by Schwartz) rather than read to ones self?

 

[UnderYourSpell]

It's really only a sentence written in 7 different ways!

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Written today while I waited for someone to harvest for me on Farmtown and if you don't play it on FB you will have no idea what I'm blethering on about! But if you have big fields it can take a while to harvest and plough! Anyway enough of that here goes ......

I asked
who themed
a summer place.
I said
Percy Faith,
I played it well.

Are you well
used to being asked
Mr Faith,
how you themed
by what's said
in this place?

A lovely place
obviously well
worth it, he said
when asked,
This was themed
taken in good faith.

Put your faith
for a place,
decide what's themed
arrange it well
and if you're asked
keep it said.

He often said
such faith
was unasked
for, misplace
the will
just call it themed.

But themed
it must be said,
I always will
state my faith
in any place,
whoever asked.

What is themed here represents my faith,
I've always said it in this place,
and it is well you asked.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

It's really only a sentence written in 7 different ways!

Exactly - that's why I think it's bit simplistic - yours on the other hand.....

 

[The_Fool]

Sestina is a dirty word.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Sestina is a dirty word.

Wasn't it you that collaborated with Ange to write one between you?