nothing is neat, I promise you that's not how/things become other things

August 15, 2019 12:14 PM

"A Sestina for January 20, 2017." by Lanna Michaels: "... things change and not always for the better, show / me something that stays constant, low / tide becomes high tide, the equal row is an optical illusion, and isn't real. So / .... I'm the fourth son, you must begin for me now ..."
posted by brainwane (10 comments total)

I wish it was just as simply beautiful but it ain’t
It’s much much worse and every day it’s getting worser
posted by growabrain at 12:45 PM on August 15, 2019

Wow. Really captures the iffy, mist-like, can't-name-me-can't-catch-me-but-I'm-everywhere quality of our chaos, our despair, and our struggle.
posted by MiraK at 12:48 PM on August 15, 2019

I really appreciate this. Thank you.

(Also, I think it deserves to be somewhere else as well. I love AO3, but a poem like this is gonna blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air if that's its only venue.)
posted by Countess Elena at 12:53 PM on August 15, 2019 [2 favorites]

Huh, oddly enough I read a bunch of stories by Lanna Michaels last night: she's huge in Vorkosigan fandom. Didn't know she was such a skilled poet.

Thanks for linking it, brainwane!
posted by suelac at 1:29 PM on August 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

I like it but my pedantic brain keeps saying that now and low don’t rhyme and it’s kicking me out of things.
posted by corb at 2:23 PM on August 15, 2019

Sestinas usually don't rhyme, right? Using words that rhyme (or almost-rhyme) adds an extra level of difficulty.
posted by beandip at 2:58 PM on August 15, 2019 [2 favorites]

oh that rowing imagery is so good. Also, really liked the mending and the knitting (making new).
posted by bilabial at 3:29 PM on August 15, 2019

Sestinas usually don't rhyme, right?

Signs point to no
posted by thelonius at 3:53 PM on August 15, 2019

Sestinas don’t usually rhyme, but when you have so many rhyming words and one that doesn’t it’s jarring. But I appreciate people attempting sestinas about our current hell regardless.
posted by corb at 11:41 PM on August 15, 2019

That's called an "eye rhyme," when words look like they should rhyme but do not. It's intentional and meant to jar the reader: "nothing will line up neatly in a row/nothing is neat".
posted by k8lin at 5:33 AM on August 19, 2019