Format: Sestina

[bookblather]

What in the world is a sestina?

Well, the simple answer is that it's an extremely complicated piece of poetry to write, and I don't know why I torture myself with writing them. The longer and probably more informative answer is that it's a seven-stanza poem, consisting of six stanzas with six lines each, and a final triplet of three lines (called an envoi). That doesn't seem so hard.

Well, actually... every line must end with one of the six words that ended the first six lines of the sestina. In a strict order of rotation.

That's tricky.

The sestina was probably invented as a poetic form sometime in twelfth-century France by, who else, a troubador, likely a gentleman by the name of Arnaut Daniel. It was terribly popular at the time, but fell out of favor after the Renaissance until the nineteenth century, where it saw a resurgance; it was particularly popular in the 1950s. Now, it's mostly used by poets who want to challenge themselves, or feel their subject may be served by a form of extreme order.

A sestina's end-word pattern is as follows, where each number represents one word:
1 2 3 4 5 6
6 1 5 2 4 3
3 6 4 1 2 5
5 3 2 6 1 4
4 5 1 3 6 2
2 4 6 5 3 1
envoi: 2/5 4/3 6/1

In the envoi, the sestina moves to two words a line in order to complete in time. This is really easiest to see when reading an actual sestina, so let's have a look at an example:

Sestina: Altaforte
Ezra Pound

I

Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let's to music!
I have no life save when swords clash.
But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing
And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
Then howl I my heart nigh mad rejoying.

II

In hot summer have I great rejoicing
When tempests kill the earth's foul peace,
And the lightnings from black heav'n flash crimson,
And the fierce thunders roar me their music
And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,
And through all the riven God¹s swords clash.

III

Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,
Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing!
Better one hour¹s stour than a year's peace
With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!
Bah! there¹s no wine like the blood's crimson!

IV

And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.
And I watch his spears throught he dark clash
and it fills my heart with rejoycing
And pries wide my mouth with fast music
When I see him so scorn and defy peace,
His lone might against all darkmess opposing.

V

The man who fears war and squats opposing
My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson
But it is fit only to rotin womanish peace
Far from where worth's won and the swords clash
For the death of sluts I go rejoicing;
Yea, I fill all the air with my music.

VI

Papiols, Papiols, to the music!
There's no sound like to swords swords opposing,
No cry like the battle's rejoicing
When our elbows and swords drip the crimson
And our charges against "The Leopard's" rush clash.
May God damn for ever all who cry "Peace!"

VII

And let the music of the swords make them crimson!
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
Hell blot black for always the thought "Peace"!

Pound's six words are, in order, peace, music, clash, opposing, crimson, and rejoicing. He does deviate from the scheme in the envoi, but he's Ezra Pound and he does what he wants, and at any rate the rest of the sestina is intact. His subject-- war, and specifically the chaos of battle-- contrasts nicely with the sestina's ordered pace.

I write sestinas myself, when the mood strikes me. I can offer a few tips: the first and foremost being to choose your words wisely. Words with more than one meaning (light, book, color) give you more flexibility. Verbs can alter in case: jumping, jump, jumped, jumps. I suggest avoiding proper nouns, particularly for your first sestina, since they complicate matters considerably.

The life of the sestina author is made easier in a few ways. A sestina needn't rhyme, or be in any particular meter, so you don't have that to worry about. Line length is variable, adding some flexibility, although I personally enjoy iambic pentameter. Finally, the sestina really is fun to write. Given time and practice, it only gets easier.

I leave you with a sestina of my own, written about a year and a half ago.

There's winter days when all she does is breathe
And turn her face to the weak, listless sun.
It is too cold sometimes to even dance
No matter how her body sings with joy.
All she can do is long for summer bright;
Watch drift, on stained-glass wings, a butterfly.

There's something perfect in a butterfly.
Something about the way it makes you breathe,
Something about its shining colors bright
That in their flashing glory best the sun.
There's something summer-like within their joy,
A certain glow that hangs about their dance.

If she is sometimes clumsy in her dance,
No matter; she will be a butterfly,
Abandon all discomfort in her joy
Until there's nothing left to do but breathe
And feel the shining splendor of sun
And know there's something in her that is bright.

That brilliance, the colors shining bright
That paint the world entire in their dance
Can sometimes hide away as does the sun.
In autumn, they flit south like butterflies.
In winter, she will find it hard to breathe
And harder to remember any joy.

In spring it starts to rise again, that joy
That makes anew her world in colors bright
But still she finds it hard sometimes to breathe
Until the summer starts its brilliant dance
And then once more she is a butterfly
That gambols in the kindness of the sun.

The summer brings her hope back with the sun.
Her namesake lights her soul with fearsome joy.
She wears bright hues and whirls, a butterfly
That gallivants through days of summer bright
And draws all those around her to the dance
That gives her once again a space to breathe.

The summer sun will once again shine bright
She will again feel joy, again will dance.
For now, she tends a butterfly, and breathes.

Further explanations and examples may be found here, but please be aware that one of the sestinas at that link contains disturbing subject matter.

--

Works Consulted

Comfort, Heather, Jenny Dobbins, Tracy Slinger. Sestina. http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/formsofverse/reports2000/page9.html

Davies, Caroline. Writing a Sestina. http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue197/sestina.html

Pound, Ezra. Sestina: Altaforte. http://poetry.about.com/od/poemsbytitles/l/blpoundsestinaaltaforte.htm

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

The sestina is one of my favorite forms. I like to use five easy, flexible words plus one longer, unusual word that touches on the theme of the poem.

Re: Thoughts

[jjhunter]

Might I trouble you for a link or two to some of your own sestinas? I'd enjoy reading your take on the form.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

I could only find one online, and it's not one that I picked the end words for:
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/46943.html

Re: Thoughts

[jjhunter]

Beautifully and skillfully done! And now I'm suddenly realizing, two sestinas in myself, that I don't have to keep to a strict syllable count. *facepalm*

Re: Thoughts

[bookblather]

I agree. One longer word helps you mix it up a little, and the flexible words keep it from being utterly impossible to write. I'd like to second the request for a link to some sestinas?

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here's one:
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/46943.html

[jjhunter]

Wow - I'm blown away by your piece.

...She wears bright hues and whirls, a butterfly
That gallivants through days of summer bright
And draws all those around her to the dance
That gives her once again a space to breathe.

Just beautiful. Seems to me like the repetition-with-scrambling format of the sestina is well-suited in general to cyclical themes; you went with the changing of the seasons, Ezra Pound with the back-and-forth of war and peace.

Anyway, thank you for the lovely post; I'm bookmarking the references to read later.

[bookblather]

Oh, thank you so much! I loved writing that one; the character is one of my favorites. And also I really like the word "gallivant."

I do like that thought, the idea of cyclical themes. I've seen sestinas used to make sense of chaotic themes as well-- the one at the end of the further reading link is very much that kind of sestina-- but now that you mention it, cycles do seem to be fairly common subjects.

[lnhammer]

One thing about sestinas -- they are best used when the theme of the poem is obsessive, as in a speaker going around and around with a topic.

Another thing I have found is that it's a good format for a narrative, but only if the story is exactly the right length. It is very hard to pad or compress things without it showing, even more than with a sonnet (which is also useful for an exact right size amount of content).

One of my own, which is narrative: "At Dearth's Door"

---L.

[bookblather]

That ties in very neatly to the cyclical nature that jjhunter pointed out. Obsession and cycles and chaos.

[jjhunter]

Okay! First attempt at sestina up over at my journal: Sestina for Sorrow's Sake. I found it helpful to choose the ending words based on what I wanted to convey with the envoi.

[jjhunter]

And here's the second (Raventime) where I wrote the envoi first. If I wrote a sestina on the subject ('corvids') again I would narrow the focus even more - I felt like I could have used another stanza before the envoi.