The Sestina

Let’s talk about poetic forms. This is, after all, a writing site. And I did major in creative writing and have done absolutely nothing with my degree. I’d like to take the opportunity to introduce and inform people about one of my favorite types of poems: The Sestina.

A sestina is an Italian poem invented in the 12th century by Arnaut Daniel, a troubadour with money problems. He was considered a genius wordsmith as well as a “grand master of love.” He belonged to a troupe of poets who were trying their damnedest to be edgy with their writings, which means they wanted their poetry to be hard to understand because they employ an eccentric use of phrases and expressions.

The sestina is six unique stanzas usually done in iambic pentameter but without rhyme. The form goes something like this:

1. ABCDEF

2. FAEBDC

3. CFDABE

4. ECBFAD

5. DEACFB

6. BDFECA

7. BE

8. DC

9. FA

Yeah. What the fuck is going on there?

Each stanza consists of six lines. The word at the end of each line is constantly shuffled about in each stanza. Let’s create a mini-mock sestina. In this example, we will not follow iambic pentameter and I will only do the first two stanzas.

A. I like apples.

B. They are good.

C. They are red

D. They take forever to rot.

E. I keep them at the back of my fridge.

F. I never remember them.

Here is our first six lined stanza. Pay attention to the last word of each line, because it will be shuffled about in the next stanza.

F. I hunger for them,

A. These apples.

E. I open the fridge,

B. But, it is no good.

D. I can smell the rot.

C. The brown now staining the red.

You keep doing this until you’ve finished six stanzas, or until you’ve lost your mind because this is a pretty intense poetic form.

The ending of this poem employs three envois. The first one uses BE, the second DC, and the third FA. So let’s pretend I wrote this Pulitzer Prize Winning Poem about apples. This is how the last three lines would go:

BE. It is a good thing I rarely open the fridge,

DC. for the scent of rot would tint me red

FA. at how I wasted them, these expensive apples.

And there you have it…Sort of.

This is, by far, one of my favorite poetic formats. I learned this not in college, but when I was in high school, before I graduated. You see, I was a huge poetry nerd, in that I kept a giant pencil box full of glitter pens and I wrote poetry constantly. I’m not talking about several poems a week but several poems a day!

I was obsessed with writing. I just loved to express myself. I wasn’t much of a talker at school and I didn’t have very many friends. I mostly kept to myself. I didn’t express myself much at home either; I mostly played video games and read books. And of course, I wrote in my many journals.

I had an English teacher in high school who noticed I was constantly writing. For the life of me, I cannot remember his name. Anyways, he was pretty influential to me as a writer. One day he noticed me sitting at the table, writing something in my massive journal (seriously this thing was huge, like bigger than a normal journal should be).

My teacher asked what I was writing and of course, I shut my journal and blushed. I told him that I liked writing poetry. He asked if I wrote often and I told him I did. He then said “You should challenge yourself then.” I had no idea what he meant. Was writing my feelings down not a challenge in and of itself?

My teacher then went on to say that it was easy for people to write what they were feeling. Anyone can do that. He went on to say it would be challenging to write a poem about MY feelings without using the words “me” or “I” in the poem.

I wrote a poem without “me” or “I”, or “you” or any noticeable subject. It was almost an awakening. It made my poetry less self-involved (something I strive for in my writing to this very day. It’s easy to write about how shitty your life and it’s easy to constantly be referring to yourself in said poem, but if you take out that element, the poem becomes something different altogether).

Every week that teacher had a different challenge for me and I’d go home and try it out. I don’t think I ever showed him any of my poems and he was respectful in that he never asked to see them. “Poetry is private,” he used to say. I was very nervous about my writing back then so I wasn’t really eager to show too many people.

One week he asked if I’d ever heard about a sestina and I said no. I hadn’t heard about half the shit he had me write about. He had a book full of different types of poems, and then he laid out the form of a sestina and said “What a challenge this would be if you could master it.”

Like I said, I became pretty obsessed with sestinas. The first one I wrote was shit. I told my teacher that the sestina was impossible because my lines ended up being too long. And then he said to write them with iambic pentameter, like I would for a sonnet. I told him that would make it impossible.

Alas, I tried it, and while it was difficult, it was also kind of fun. I enjoyed challenging my writing.

The sestina became my poetic form. I spent most of college writing them in another (different) journal. It’s the type I go back to from time to time in my adulthood. Mostly, my poetry has no form at all; just mindless prose trying to pass as poetic. Every so often it creeps back into my mind and I write a few. It’s like exercise for the mind.

So without further ado, Here is a sestina I wrote (not about apples) for everyone to enjoy!

Death is waiting

A. They stand giant and idle by the door,

B. awaiting the jester who will answer.

C. I throw the door open too eagerly.

D. What was I expecting? Certainly not

E. the frost-cold finger extending from death.

F. The shiver I feel is expectation.

~

F. Perhaps they are flawed, my expectations.

A. They pass me by, I glimpse the open door

E. wondering if they’ll forget me, and death

B. looks only to me, needing an answer

D. to a question unasked but am I not

C. still sitting here breathing so eagerly?

~

C. I’ve always been patiently, eagerly

F. biding my time but these expectations

D. are a constant let-down. I just cannot

A. seem to gain final passage through the door

B. I have been knocking for years; no answer.

E. I grow tired of the games played by death.

~

E. I should now anticipate less from death.

C. Their hands aren’t come for me eagerly;

B. when I beg questions, there are no answers.

F. Such is a life of failed expectations.

A. I decided quickly to close the door

D. but put to bed this craving? I did not.

~

D. I was supposed to move on, but I’m not

E. completely done with the notion of death.

A. Perhaps I did slam shut that goddamn door

C. but it’s unlocked, in case death eagerly

F. needs to meet their private expectations.

B. I only expect an end, not answers.

~

B. Instead, they came to me for an answer.

D. What could I give death? I’m useless, and not

F. anything sought after. Expectation

E. from this end, a shock! They wish to live, death

C. begs an exchange, although too eagerly.

A. Imagine, it’s my turn to knock on doors.

~

B/E. Would anyone answer the knock for death

D/C. if it’s me, not a cloaked ghoul eagerly

F/A. filling expectation, paused at the door?