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Poetry in Form: Sestina
All formal poetry employs some form of repetition. Human beings have an natural affinity for repetition. Our world, of course, repeats the cycle of the seasons and the cycle of sunrise and sunset. The first sound we ever hear is our mother’s heart beating in a predictable, repetitive rhythm. We like to hear the same songs and stories over and over again.
Maybe it’s my affinity for repetition that leads me to make the same mistakes over and over again!
Sestinas don’t have to repeat a rhythm or meter or rhyme scheme. They only need to repeat the same end-words in six stanzas of six lines each, and then include the six end words in a three-line envoi at the end of the poem. It sounds easier than adhering to a strict meter and rhyme pattern, but I agree with a poet-friend who said “the sestina is the road to insanity.” Try it at your peril.
Here’s one that was published earlier this year in Stirring. The repeated words are killing, understand, might, case, keep, and manage. You can give yourself more flexibility with this form if you choose words that have more than one meaning. The sestina form seemed to fit my subject: scientific experiments which seek to create a reproducible result. This issue of Stirring was edited by Caseyrenee Lopez.
