Sestina

Six words repeated at the end of each line. What could go wrong? Well, the seemingly random order is not random; it’s definitely proscribed. The order for the first stanza is easy – it’s ABCDEF. It gets a little tricky after that. The second stanza is not what logic may cause you to expect and then there’s the seventh stanza. Keep in mind these are repeated words, not rhymes. Here is the order according to the American Academy of Poets website:

1. ABCDEF
2. FAEBDC
3. CFDABE
4. ECBFAD
5. DEACFB
6. BDFECA
7. (envoi) ECA or ACE

That seventh stanza (or envoi) has three lines and uses each of the six repeating words in the middle and the end of each line. The form is attributed to troubadours of old, particularly Arnaut Daniel of the 12^th century, but it is still used and very popular now with one notable exception. If you are ever tempted to apply for the Marge Piercy Intensive Poetry Workshop, make a note that she does NOT like sestinas.

Again a form is often best shown by example. Here are two well known sestinas and one of my own.

Sestina – Elizabeth Bishop

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It's time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.

 

Paysage Moralisé – W.H. Auden

Hearing of harvests rotting in the valleys,
Seeing at end of street the barren mountains,
Round corners coming suddenly on water,
Knowing them shipwrecked who were launched for islands,
We honour founders of these starving cities
Whose honour is the image of our sorrow,

Which cannot see its likeness in their sorrow
That brought them desperate to the brink of valleys;
Dreaming of evening walks through learned cities
They reined their violent horses on the mountains,
Those fields like ships to castaways on islands,
Visions of green to them who craved for water.

They built by rivers and at night the water
Running past windows comforted their sorrow;
Each in his little bed conceived of islands
Where every day was dancing in the valleys
And all the green trees blossomed on the mountains
Where love was innocent, being far from cities.

But dawn came back and they were still in cities;
No marvellous creature rose up from the water;
There was still gold and silver in the mountains
But hunger was a more immediate sorrow,
Although to moping villagers in valleys
Some waving pilgrims were describing islands ...

"The gods," they promised, "visit us from islands,
Are stalking, head-up, lovely, through our cities;
Now is the time to leave your wretched valleys
And sail with them across the lime-green water,
Sitting at their white sides, forget your sorrow,
The shadow cast across your lives by mountains."

So many, doubtful, perished in the mountains,
Climbing up crags to get a view of islands,
So many, fearful, took with them their sorrow
Which stayed them when they reached unhappy cities,
So many, careless, dived and drowned in water,
So many, wretched, would not leave their valleys.

It is our sorrow. Shall it melt? Ah, water
Would gush, flush, green these mountains and these valleys,
And we rebuild our cities, not dream of islands.

And mine. I’ve been told my lines are too short, that the repeated lines show up too soon. Probably true. Here it is:

One List, After Another, To Do

Yes, there is that one.

I’ll put it on the list.

Yes, I’ll do it after

All, but there is another

That begs for me to

Make that the next I do.

What else can I do?

I understand why that one

Is what I have to look to.

This is not my only list.

I have this and another;

I’ll do them all after.

Not now but on a day after

I have less to do

Then I’ll be onto another

Set of things, not this one

But a long line, a real list

Of places to go to.

I have more goals to work to

Until at some time after

This I go onto the next list

Of places to go and things to do

I’ll always have at least one

Thing jumping before another.

Soon enough I’ll be onto another

Among all the tasks to

Face me before this one.

Even that should come after

What I plan to do

Once I’ve done this list.

I’ll put it on my list

But first, I have another

Set of things to do

Before I get to

The plans I made after

Deciding to finish this one.

 

I have the list all settled to

Move on to another shortly after

I plan to do just this one.