Update: December, 2006 Throughout this page you'll find links to sestinas written by internet poets. All works appear here with permission of the author and all rights are reserved. Enjoy! Answering the burning question... What is a sestina? The sestina is an old fixed form of poetry, dating as far back as the twelfth century. It consists of six six-line stanzas and a three-line concluding stanza. The ending words of the first stanza are repeated throughout each subsequent stanza in a set pattern. The same six words appear in the concluding three-line stanza, two in each line. Twelfth century troubadour Arnaut Daniel is attributed with inventing the form. Arnaut Daniel's Lo ferm voler - Old Provencal French plus English translation (with thanks to R Kenyon) Complete Works The most strict interpretations usually call for the sestina to be written in a fixed meter, such as iambic pentameter. However, many modern interpretations do not consider this a necessity. Such leniency is not given to the pattern of the end words, the heart of what makes a sestina the form that it is. This pattern is fixed, and builds upon itself from each stanza. Awake, yet eyes are closed to think (1) My dream so thick it leaves a taste (2) His voice still strong enough to hear (3) My flesh still crawling with his touch (4) The morning breeze brings me the scent(5) Of daisies, far as I can see.(6) The first line of stanza two will repeat the endword of the last line of stanza one (6). S2L1 = S1L6 Then it jumps to the top, so the second line of Stanza 2 will end with the end word of the first line of Stanza one (1). S2L2 = S1L1 Now it goes down again, to the next unused word as close to the end. (5) S2L3 = S1L5 And back up, to the unused word closest to the top; the fourth line of Stanza 2 will end with the same word that ends Stanza 1, line two. (2) S2L4 = S1L2 Down again, to the end word nearest the end that has not been used, that of line four. (4) S2L5 = S1L4 Up once more, to the last unused end word, that of Stanza 1, Line three (3) S2L6 = S1L3 Awake, yet eyes are closed to think (1) My dream so thick it leaves a taste (2) His voice still strong enough to hear (3) My flesh still crawling with his touch (4) The morning breeze brings me the scent(5) Of daisies, far as I can see.(6) And what a sight it is to see (6) So white and pure, it makes me think (1) Of days gone by, his heavy scent (5) When all I needed was a taste (2) To know this was the love to touch (4) So strong, I could no longer hear (3) And so it goes, building each stanza in the same fashion using the words of the previous. Other Explanations of the Form Forms of Verse - Alberto Rios Sestina (poetic term) Repeating and Interlocking Forms Craft of Poetry - Sestina Poetry Pointers - Al Rocheleau Some Thoughts on Sestinas - by Lawrence Schimel Red Writing - Sestina Poetry Form - the sestina 1911 Encyclopedia eHow to write a sestina Spinelessbooks Table of forms Wordweave (different pattern) Guide to Verse Forms Wikipedia Answers.com Sestina Creator Sestina end word pattern generator Oy - the Envoy! Most of the variations of the rules I have seen seem to revolve around the three line envoy. Thanks to Ricardo Sternberg who sent me the following explanation, attributed to Jorge de Sena, portuguese poet and scholar: "The Sestina is a spiral. The easiest way to figure the form is to begin drawing a spiral on word six (of first stanza) up to word one down to word five up to word two, down to word four, up to word three. This gives you the second stanza 6,1,5,2,4,3. Do the same spiral beginning again at the bottom of the stanza i.e. 3. This will yield the order of the third stanza. And so on. The seventh time you do the spiral you return to the original order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Nifty, ain't it? Once you know this however, it is hard to cheat on that thorny final tercet which should, which must contain the words in the right order." That would leave us with an envoy with end words 2,4,6 and middle words 1,3,5: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Sir Philipp Sidney's Ye Goatherd Gods, a double sestina, uses this envoy pattern. Other sources (e.g. thinkquest and Repeating and Interlocking Forms) explain the envoy as ending in this pattern: 1 4 2 5 3 6 Which also, of course, displays the turnabout of 1,2,3,4,5,6 using middle words first, then end words. The explanation from Sestina (poetic term) indicates this pattern: 2 5 4 3 6 1 Rudyard Kipling's Sestina of the Tramp Royal uses this pattern. Ezra Pound's SESTINA: ALTAFORTE almost follows this pattern, however end words 4 and 6 were omitted. As a personal note, the WebMistress here adds that this is her preferred form: I had a taste (2), and caught the scent (5) Enough that I can touch (4), and hear (3) Our lives, you see (6), are what we think(1)*. Still other sources advise that there is no need for a strict pattern on the envoy, as long as all six end words are included. Elizabeth Bishop's Sestina uses the pattern: 6 5 2 4 3 1 Other Examples: Algernon Charles Swinburne, Sestina How about a color coded word scheme? Do you know anyone named Sestina? October 8, 2000 - I'm updating my page this morning and poking around for links and such things, and I discover that Yahoo has given us a nifty pair of cool sunglasses! Nobody even told me! What do the sunglasses mean? According to Yahoo, they "are placed by our editors to indicate sites that are noteworthy resources in their subject area". Woohoo! Thanks Yahoo! Check out our neat Yahoo listing. A listing to the site has been added in Yahoo's Poetry Directory. It has a feature that you can rate a site - if you have a moment, stop by and give us a rating! We have our first non-english submission by Ronald Kenyon, who has offered his Sextine d'Automne. Ronald sent word that he read two sestinas at the French Cave a Poemes; including Sextine d'Automne. (You can read this poem under Ronald's link to the left!). Ronald is searching for an example of a sestina written in the Occitan or Provencal dialects. If you can help, please e-mail Ronald. Congratulations to Ronald for the opportunity to read these beautiful poems and special thanks from me for his enthusiasm for the form and our page. Do you remember "My Sharona"? Here's a fun parody: My Sestina Courtesy of ANWguy@aol.com Ooh my little pretty one, my pretty one If I could find a little more time Sestina. Ooh, you make my motor run, My motor run. Tryin' just to think of a line Sestina. Never gonna stop, give it up, you're stuck in my mind Always gets me up as I stretch for another rhyme (My my my yi yi whoo! M-m-m my Sestina! M-m-m my Sestina!) More! Thanks to Website Viewer and Guestbook Signer (yay!) deemikay, for the reference to Raymond Queneau and the Oulipo. As this viewer explains, "They've done lots of work on sestinas and worked out how to base them on stanza lengths other than 6. Not every number works....But 99 does! If you use that, your 99-ina will be 9801 lines long without the envoy! ... Insane but inspirational!" Web Poets Sestina Decoy - Linda Beiler sestina about the course of 88 - Alyssa Carlberg The Drive Home- Devi Vendoland Sestina - Bryant Durrell NMJ: Island Sestina - Kathleen Firestone Weeds and Flowers- Claire Marie de la Grange feydakin - Damnosa Herediatas a.k.a.Chic789@aol.com Cat in Hell's - Peter Howard Sestina for Blackberry Season - Ruth Levitan Hanseland Gretel - Edward C Lynskey The Krenek Sestinas - Don Mager Sestina in the Computer Age - Scott Reid The Cheese Sestina - Douglas Shaw Six Descending Notes - Karl J Sherlock Applie Pie American - Sunalun The Shrinking of Lonesome Sestina - Miller Williams La Serenissima McSweeneys Sestinas about Sestinas My Sestina - S.K. Iyer Sestina Sestina - Adam LaFerve Tackling the Sestina Challenge - SpaceCase Link to purchase... I thought this was different enough to be worthy of inclusion - A comic book in sestina form: Jim and Dave defeat the Masked Man A few people have written to me asking if I had additional resources or could help with research on sestinas. I love the feedback and am happy to discuss the form anytime, but every time I update the page I try to include all of the information that I have! I want to be included but I really think that we need to rely on each other for information - that's the beauty of the internet! It's hard to find someone on your block who is interested in discussing sestinas, but somewhere around the globe someone else wants to talk about it! I hope that we can find ways to find each other! The E-list is cooking! The e-list community for those of you who may be interested in exchaning e-mails with others who have submitted to or enjoyed this website can be used for both discussion and contributions (note: this is a public forum). We currently have 137 members. Subscribe to Sestina Powered by groups.yahoo.com Our web poets are featured in the files section - you can read them here! Due to changes in Yahoo Groups policy, it is no longer possible for you to view the files from the website here unless you have subscribed to the Sestina group and are also logged into Yahoo. It's free to join the group - please consider joining to read more great sestina poetry. Open forum for posting of sestinas, comments and critiques, or general discussion of the form, the challenges of writing, your own variations, etc. I also send a note to the forum whenever this page is updated. As I mention in my welcome letter, it will be up to the subscribers to make the e-list an enjoyable and useful community - I cannot do it alone! You know you are interested, or you wouldn't be reading this! Give it a try! For the Adventurous Have any of you tried a double sestina? If so, how do you define it? what was your word scheme? Can you offer examples? Ye Goatherd Gods is referred to as a double sestina. It has twelve six line stanzas, plus a 3 line envoy. One of our brave readers is working on a poem with twelve twelve-line stanzas and a six line envoy. Not for the faint of heart! Sestina Variations Use Vicka Corey's C program!