The Sestina
The Sestina
A Challenging Spiral of Meaning
A Challenging Spiral of Meaning
Create a sestina.
A: A sestina is a rigid, obsessive poem format that repeats the end words of each line.
A: Six, six line stanzas. Then, 1 3-line stanza (the ‘envoi’) to finish the poem. That’s not all… You have a very specific rhyme/word pattern. I’ve created a basic outline on the next page, next to the sample.
A: A bunch.
Here they are:
You’re free to do as many syllables per line as you’d like. This makes your task lighter!
Put a ton of effort into drafting your first stanza. Make sure those end words are what you REALLY want
Really emphasize those end words. Pick words that have strong binaries and variations found within them. For instance: ‘break’ or ‘stand.’ It helps if the word has flexibility with rhyme, too. Try to avoid words that have little or no ambiguity. I abandoned ‘disarray’ with my attempt because I couldn’t find a creative way to repurpose it
Concept: It should be something you obsess over. The poem runs over the same words over and over, almost like the speaker is obsessing over it
Finally: It’s not as hard as it sounds. Once you get your end words and concept, the rest flows pretty well!
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(A) F
(B) E
(C) D
The time had come to see a body lie, (10)
A shoe, pooled in blood, empty on the floor. (10)
A thought occurred, led to a written place, (10)
Where now I sit with caustic thoughts (8)
Wasting this time that has to pass (8)
Wracking my mind for possibilities. (10)
And what are all the possibilities? (10)
And where do Ukrainian people lie? (10)
When hordes of common people pine to pass, (10)
I enclosed in that moral floor, (8)
Giving none but myself a thought, (8)
Loathing my breath in this protected place. (10)
Had they not remained in that adverse place (10)
Had they to live that possibility? (10)
And for their doom I am lost in thought (10)
Feeding self with desperate lies, (8)
Scraping earth, mankind’s ravished floors, (8)
Hoping that their memory won’t pass. (10)
And of this poem, that will surely pass? (10)
And what of this lingual contemplation? (10)
A surface to rebuild a founding floor (10)
And find a possibility (8)
In that long-told, important lie: (8)
Pens rebuild toppled masonry in thought. (10)
They linger ruined, devoted ruckus thoughts. (10)
Ones that cannot fade, ones that cannot pass, (10)
Entrenched in memory. A forced lie (10)
That waits for tranquil time and place (8)
To rebuild possibilities (8)
And aspire beyond this poetic floor. (10)
I will repose dejected on this floor (10)
Where I will recycle obsessive thoughts (10)
And ransack whole the possibilities (10)
Hoping to find a place to pass (8)
The foreign trauma to a place (8)
Their yellowblue may unforgotten lie. (10)
I will gift them to my spirit's floor, they won't pass, (12)
And I will survey my thoughts, eye my gilded place, (12)
And forward lie with them in possibilities. (12)
I’m very proud of this poem. This is actually an unfinished draft, for I’m still trying to find new ways to mold and manipulate the end words. I also decided to give myself an optional restriction: syllable counts. I did 10-10-10-8-8-10 with a 12 syllable envoi to reflect a change and assert the decision I close with.
The film (20 Days in Mariupol) contained extended footage of the war in Ukraine, my ancestral home. I have often struggled with how to identify which parts of my are Ukrainian (vs. Russian), and this film challenges those parts of myself as well as my own indifference to the suffering of others. I kept obsessive over the scenes there, which prompted me to write this poem.
The scene that I mention at the opening is about a boy named Ilya (16), who was killed in a bombing after he was playing soccer in the street. He made it to the hospital where he lost both of his legs, but died shortly after. The film shows his father weeping over his body, and I can’t (won’t) get that image out of my head. The film also includes the death of Angelina (4) and Gavriel (18 months). While they die in this pointless war, I continue to live this gilded life, where I can play with poetic structures and sestinas and their pulse diminishes into silence.