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LadyEponine —
How to Write a Sestina
Published: 2004-07-17 23:32:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 7649; Favourites: 155; Downloads: 642
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Description
In order to write a sestina,you must start by being unsure,
quickly switching from cold to hot
to cold and to hot again,
the temperature being like a cat
in the Sahara desert at dusk.
Sit on your porch at dusk,
watch the clouds create their sestinas.
As you watch, allow your cat
beside you, her tongue lapping unsurely
from a cup. Look up again,
wonder if milk would be hot
if left out. It is hot;
There is a heat about dusk.
Forget. Forget about the poem again,
Look around. Everywhere, there are sestinas.
Not just in the cool, unsure
ripples your cat
makes, the gentle clink clink your cat’s
teeth make as she tips her hot
tongue against her cup. In unsure
clouds, sestinas. Not just in dusk
either. And mosquitoes make stinging sestinas.
Crumple a sheet of paper. Again.
Now throw it out, again and again.
Eventually, sensing a toy, your cat
will chase it. Wonder what a sestina
really is. The pen will feel hot
in your hand. Take some paper. Dusk
is now ending; Be absolutely sure
this time you will write it. Surely,
you will crumple it up again.
Don’t get a flashlight, it’s still dusk;
the lines are blurry. Your cat
will inspect you, her paws hot
against your arm. Write. This sestina
won’t write itself. No sestina does. Surely
by now you know that, how hot the pen feels, how again
you are unsure. And when dusk is over and your cat is bored it will be done.
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Comments: 48
Congratulations for getting a DD. I haven’t written a Sestina in a long time, but I remember them being difficult.
Good work on giving us all a lovely poem and a lesson in poetry!
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brilliant...i've wanted to write one of these for at least a year (if not longer) but could never really grasp how it was done...had the same problem with Pantoum at first but i finally got that one and wrote a few rather good ones and collaborated on several that turned out even better...rest assured i'm sharing this one
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How do you write the way you do. I mean where. Do you write in journal or what?
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This is beautiful. I am so happy I found this
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It's certainly an entertaining read. Though, from my screen, your final paragraph isn't in its 6-line-form. You may wish to edit the document on that.
This sorta made me want to write another sestina of my own.
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You should read some recource on how to write a sestina. The final paragraph is called an envoy. It's a tercet that sums the poem up by using the 6 'rhyming words' in but three lines.
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Magnificent and brilliant. Reminds me of a poem called "So you have asked me to write a sonnet..." by a poet from here.
The final phrase "And when dusk is over and your cat is bored it will be done." really packs a punch.
Not to say the rest of the poem is of a lesser quality but... agh!
Words fail me.
And here I was, trying to butter you up with a well thought,flamboyant, and grandiose compliment on this poem,
but all I can say is: keep on writing more sestinas.
Hell, anything you want.
Thank you.
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Hahahahahahahaha thats awesome! I love it!
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I love how you use 'unsure(ly)' in the first three stanzas and then 'sure(ly)' in the last three and the envoi. The way it subtly influences the tone is brilliant.
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This is pretty awesome. Its good to see people actually writing poetry in form for a change.
If you have time, check out a Sestina i wrote as well, except mine doesn't have a Tercet like yours.
[link]
I only have one small criticism for your piece: The meter or line system seems a bit off target. I have something of a similar problem
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Awesomee,
It makes me want to actually study poetry :/
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As it happens - it is a Sestina I also quite like - and so 
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I'd never heard of this poem form before, but I love the rhythm. What a clever example. Well done!
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awesome! i've never heard of sestina's until just last month in english. i submitted it if you want to view it...it's called Rose.
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this is great! i like the hot and cold theme, as well as the "blurry lines" and "surely, you will crumple it up again"
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That is beautiful work. I am not very well versed in poetry, but I like this piece a lot. Very many congratulations on the DD, it is well deserved!
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I enjoyed this so much, you did a great work there
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well let's just say you've succeeded at least in making a sestina I like.
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Wow. Sestinas are hard stuff. I tried one once and gave up halfway through, so I admire you for even finishing one. I love the imagery in this: "Sit on your porch at dusk,
watch the clouds create their sestinas." Very nicely done. It's pretty hard to pull off a good sestina, so applause to you, and congrats on the DD!
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I like this a lot! It makes me think >.> which is hard to do because I'm usually out in space. Thank you
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I just wrote a sestina 2 months ago 
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Such a lovely sestina, i had yet to read one tilll this. But after doing some research i find this one of my favorites. Keeping true to form but flowing and beautiful if not a little absurd. (A good thing i may add.)
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Is this really a sestina?
Six lines, six stanzas, tercet at the end, but, the last line is not to form with a sestina. The same six words of the last line must be repeated, but in a different order.
This is a nice poem, but not in the sestina form. :\
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Scratch that. I need more sleep.
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Beautiful adherence to form while playing around within that structure. I like it.
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A very admirable job you did with this difficult, fixed form!
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Sestina-- my favorite poetic form, probably. Very creative and clever.
Congrats on the well-deserved DD.
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This had to be insanely difficult, sestinas seem to be such a pain. I've never had the courage to sit down and attempt to write one. Maybe now...
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This is just fantastic.
An admirable and fitting sixth attempt.
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Sestinas make my head hurt to write.
But I loved reading this one!
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This is fantastic! I tried to write a sestina once, but never again! Wonderfully crafted and a well-deserved Daily Deviation, well done!
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Also, you're a true writer. There are always cats involved.
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I love this. I enjoy writing sestinas quite a lot, but I've never written an unrhymed one. Hmm, I think I'll do that now.
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It's like... a... META-SESTINA! Which sounds sort of like a kind of cancer.
It's growing on me!
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Ah, now that is a beautiful sestina. I love it! Makes me want to try to write one again.
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I like the word "sestina"... i ddint knwo what it was, but Im gwessing its a six-verse poeam... I like your cat.
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it's a certain form of poetry. really complicated, i don't feel like explaining it. It is a cool word tho, isn't it?
Ah, but too bad Ether is an imaginary cat.
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