The Six-Stanza Sestina

The sestina, which originated in France, is an unrhymed form of poetry.  The poem is six stanzas long with each stanza containing six lines; a three line envoy completes the poem.  Just as every line of a pantoum is repeated later in the poem, the final word of each line of a sestina is repeated later in the poem.  Once again, patterning comes into play.  Here is the pattern of the words in a sestina:

123456

615243

364125

532614

451362

246531

(62) (14) (53)

John Ashbery's Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape, published in 1966, is an example of a sestina (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177258).  

The first of the undecoded messages read:  "Popeye sits in thunder,

Unthought of from that shoebox of an apartment,

From livid curtain's hue, a tangram emerges:  a country."

Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch:  "How pleasant

To spend one's vacation en la casa de Popeye," she scratched

Her cleft chin's solitary hair.  She remembered spinach."

And was going to ask Wimpy if he had bought any spinach

"My love," he intercepted, "the plains are decked out in thunder

Today and it shall be as you wish." He scratched 

The part of his head under his hat.  The apartment

Seemed to grow smaller.  "But what if no pleasant 

Inspiration plunge us now to the stars?  For this is my country."

Suddenly they remembered how it was cheaper in the country.

Wimpy was thoughtfully cutting open a number two can of spinach

When the door opened and Swee'pea crept in.  "How pleasant!"

But Swee'pea looked morose.  A note was pinned to his bib.  "Thunder

And tears are unveiling," it read.  "Henceforth shall Popeye's apartment

Be but remembered space, toxic but salubrious, whole or scratched."

Olive came hurtling through the window; it's geraniums

Scratched her long thigh.  "I have news!" she gasped.  "Popeye, as you know, forced to flee the

country

One musty gusty evening by schemes of his wizened duplicate father, jealous of 

the apartment

And all that it contains, myself and spinach

In particular, heaves bolts of loving thunder

At his own astonished becoming, rupturing the pleasant.

Arpeggio of our years. No more shall pleasant

Rays of the sun refresh your sense of growing old, nor the scratched

Tree trunks and mossy foliage, only immaculate darkness and thunder."

She grabbed Swee'pea.  "I'm taking the brat to the country."

"But you can't do that.  He hasn't even finished his spinach,"

Urged the Sea Hag looking fearfully around the apartment.

But Olive was already out of earshot.  Now the apartment

Succumbed to a strange new hush.  "Actually, it's quite pleasant

Here," thought the Sea Hag.  "If this is all we need fear from spinach

Then I don't mind so much. Perhaps we could invite Alice the Goon over" -- she scratched

One dug pensively -- "but Wimpy is such a country 

Bumpkin, always burping like that."  Minute at first, the thunder

Soon filled the apartment. It was domestic thunder

The colour of spinach. Popeye chuckled and scratched

His balls.  It sure was pleasant to spend a day in the country."

The Complaint of Lisa, by Algernon Charles Swinburne, is a double sestina (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174548).

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/ashbery/images/popeye1.jpg

Pantoum: Patterning in Poetry

While Math was never my cup of tea, I do appreciate the patterning involved in writing a pantoum. When you compose a pantoum you repeat every line once in the poem.  What a challenge it is to follow the pattern of the poem, while still preserving its meaning!

The pantoum, or pantun, originated in Malaysia in the 15th Century.  Originally, the poem had only two couplets.  However, in time, the poem lengthened.  Victor Hugo introduced the pantoum to Europe when he published one in his Les Orientales collection.  Charles Baudelaire composed the popular pantoum, Harmonie de Soir.  Later, poets like Anne Waldman and Donald Justice brought the poetic form to America.

The rhyming scheme is ABAB, but can also be ABBA.  Here is the format for a five stanza quatrain (four is also common):

Stanza 1:  1, 2, 3, 4
Stanza 2:  2, 5, 4, 6
Stanza 3:  5, 7, 6, 8
Stanza 4:  7, 9, 8, 10
Stanza 5:  9, 3, 10, 1

My pantoum, The Magic of a Father and a Daughter, written while at the Lake Erie beach in Long Point in 2006, follows the structure above:

I see the magic of a father and a daughter

As they build sandcastles on the beach.

I watch the pair as they lounge by the blue water,

Knowing fatherhood is something that you cannot teach.

As they build sandcastles on the beach, 

He sculpts the sand with a big strong hand.

Knowing fatherhood is something that you cannot teach;

Next to him, she look so little as she pours the sand.

He sculpts the sand with a big strong hand.

No words are needed as they work side by side.

Next to him, she looks so little as she pours the sand.

Father an daughter share a bond that they cannot hide.

No words are needed as they work side by side.

Clad in an orange bikini, she builds the castle tall.

Father and daughter share a bond that they cannot hide.

AS the waves encroach, he builds a giant wall.

Clad in an orange bikini, she builds the castle tall.

I watch the pair as they lounge by the blue water.

As the waves encroach, he builds a giant wall.

I see the magic of a father and a daughter.





http://www.shutterstock.com/s/sandcastle/search.html

Here is Donald Justice's Pantoum of the Great Depression, which has no rhyming scheme, but does repeat each line.

Our lives avoided tragedy

Simply by going on and on.

Without end and without any apparent meaning.

Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.

Simply by going on and on
We managed.  No need for the heroic.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
I don't remember all the particulars.

We managed.  No need for the heroic.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
I don't remember all the particulars.
Across the fence, the neighbours were our chorus.

There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
Thank God no one said anything in verse.
The neighbours were our only chorus.
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.

At no time did anyone say anything in verse.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
No audience would ever know our story.

It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
What audience would every know our story?
Beyond our windows shone the actual world.

We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.

And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
We did not ourselves know what the end was.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.

But we did not ourselves know what the end was.
People like us simply go on.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.
But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.

And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.




http://www2.ljworld.com/photos/galleries/2008/oct/14/dark_memories_revived/

For more about the pantoum, visit http://www.utmostchristianwriters.com/articles/article3020.php.