Comments on: S_estina

S_estina

escabeche — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:52:15 -0800

The sestina is an old poetic form invented by the troubadors; each of the thirty-nine lines ends with one of only six words, which gives the sestina a haunting, constricted feel. You might have read modern examples by Bishop or Auden, or the even more modern "WTF Sestina" by Meghann Marco. But you have probably never read a sestina which explains how to construct a sestina in the language of finite group theory. (.pdf link) Via excellent mathblog God Plays Dice.

By: escabeche

escabeche — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:55:21 -0800

More sestinas from McSweeney's: Daniel Ari's "How To Build a Sestina Template in Microsoft Excel" is a self-explicatory sestina similar in spirit to the Emmons sestina linked above, but possibly even nerdier. Among my favorites is Stephen Burt's "Six Kinds of Noodles," but the poet is a personal friend so I've kept him out of the post to avoid self-linky-linky.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:57:38 -0800

This a throwing-of-the-gauntlet re: past metafilter haiku threads, whether you meant it to be or not.

By: Caduceus

Caduceus — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:04:28 -0800

I've written three sestinas in my life. I will not write a sestina specifically for this thread, since it takes about eight hours over two or three days, and I have too much goddamn stuff to do right now, but I will post one if someone asks nicely.

By: Caduceus

Caduceus — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:05:05 -0800

...since it takes [me] about eight hours...

By: Caduceus

Caduceus — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:18:23 -0800

Oh, now that I've read them, the finite group theory sestina is fucking cool, as is the Sestina Template. Thanks for the post.

By: kid ichorous

kid ichorous — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:20:00 -0800

...since it takes [me] about eight hours... For the sestina, the ghazal, and the crown of sonnets, tag-teaming is allowed. They are the Wrestlemania of poetry.

By: krinklyfig

krinklyfig — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:47:53 -0800

Amazing. Sounds like it would be very hard to write. I didn't understand the way the OP put it, but the Wikipedia explanation is pretty thorough.

By: Awkward Philip

Awkward Philip — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:49:27 -0800

Matt Madden, cartoonist and founder of Oubapo-America, did a comics sestina, which he published in A Fine Mess #2. He describes his method at the bottom of this page, which contains some other thoughts on comics sestinas. The actual comic isn't available online, but it's worth searching out the issue if you're interested in that sort of thing.

By: Caduceus

Caduceus — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:14:03 -0800

Because I have an ego which quickly gets out of control if I don't get people to cut it down to size for me on occasion, I'll interpret two favorites as asking nicely. The Basilisk Can Hibernate Over a Century Near where we grew up, there was a cave full of bones Which, when walked on in the early autumn, would crackle The way fallen leaves would when caught in the grip Of a laughing child, or when scraped by the scales Of a reptile, a snake or lizard, the kind my lover would shun Whenever one was near, which often happened when we drove Out into the country, near the cave. I always drove Them away for her. No one knew why the cave was full of bones Back then, but mothers always told their children to shun It, fearing wild animals, even monsters, whose meals would crackle As they chewed, whose bodies were covered in ridges and scales, Who would catch lost, unwary children in their terrible grip. When I was a child, and lived near it, my mother would grip My arm whenever she saw me start that way, which drove Me to circle great lengths, around the neighbor's barn and the scales He used to weigh his stock. For I loved to study the bones, To try and figure out what had left them, to hear their crackle. Thus when I grew, and moved further away, I did not shun The cave, but took my lover there, though she would shun The snakes found there, and catch my arm in a powerful grip Whenever one was near. But she did not mind the crackle Of the bones underfoot, nor the touch of my hand as we drove Up into those hills, and was as entranced by the mystery of the bones As I was. One day, our last visit there, we found scales In the cave, enormous. We hardly recognized them as scales At first. When we did, we wondered if we would be better to shun That place, for surely they belonged to a dinosaur, no longer bones But walking flesh and blood. This time I caught her in a grip As I turned to leave. Before we could, a noise outside drove Us deeper into the cave: the suddenly horrible crackle Of bones at the entrance. We fled deeper, trying not to crackle As we ran, telling ourselves we hadn't seen a flash of sun on scales From the entrance. Then my lover tripped. The thing that drove Us shrieked, chilling my blood. I had a choice: shun My lover and the thing, fleeing to safety, or pull her up with my grip And risk dying as well. I hesitated, frozen among the bones. Later, far from that cave of bones, the flash of scales Would haunt me, as would the crackle, and I knew I would shun That cave from which I drove forevermore, my arm missing her grip.

By: kid ichorous

kid ichorous — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:05:29 -0800

I've started a Mortal Kombat sestina I'll never finish in time to post. It will probably kill me like Mozart's Requiem. Thanks Metafilter.

By: Iridic

Iridic — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:13:40 -0800

Cire Perdue It might take eight hours to cast the words in the mold of air. What of it? Was never a poem (a decent poem) as didn't need to harden. But when it's to the tooth- then lose the wax. Expose the form! Then form, and again, reform... (Forgive me. At these later hours the metaphor slips from the tooth and dissipates in busy air.) What was I nearing? A need for patience? The molecule-perfect poem? But I've known too the joyous quick poem, stretched out of the strictures of form; that modern style that respects a need for time. You need eight hours now: flirting, lazing, taking the air, consulting the dentist on your impacted tooth. Though when he comes through the jaw at the tooth that thirded day elongates. A poem: if you but had one between you and the bitter air of the office, between the foam form chair and your neck, between the hours of gauze in the mouth and the forgetting. We need, (as Œdipus knew, but did not know), we need the staff when long in shadow and tooth. When image slips in our darker hours we retain the word; we keep the poem or let it dissipate, finding a form more permanent as it melts at air. As all melts at touch of air, after all; if that's the need, then let's set our wax to a form. Even as the smile employs the tooth, we'll make of ourselves a poem as will ever justify our hours. And so, after hours, I've cast my air: a poem of wax lost to need. See! Perfect like a tooth, the solid form.

By: cthuljew

cthuljew — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:17:51 -0800

Would it be inappropriate to write a sestina where the word poop is the last word in every line?

By: kingfisher, his musclebound cat

kingfisher, his musclebound cat — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:45:17 -0800

I have a mathgeek friend at a bar who teaches set theory and writes complex muck in excel since it is purely modal and he seems to like that. One day I was in there reading a book on the Oulipo group, and I ended up trying to describe certain literary ludic forms to him, among them the sestina. He didn't get the point of it and maybe the only thing worse was a lipogram. Suddenly I have a couple things that might speak to him. Or not. Probably not. But thanks. It's a good bar, come by.

By: joannemerriam

joannemerriam — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:07:13 -0800

cthuljew: I'd like to see that. I wrote a science fiction domestic abuse sestina once. It took me considerably longer than eight hours, so I must bow to Caduceus's superior skill.

By: kittens for breakfast

kittens for breakfast — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:56:04 -0800

The existence of the sestina proves, I think, that OCD dates back at least as far as the twelfth century.

By: cobra libre

cobra libre — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:25:33 -0800

Wow, great post. I'll provide the obligatory link to Pound's "Sestina: Altaforte." And you must hear him reading it.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:28:39 -0800

I like restrictive forms to the extent they provide a lovely lattice on which creativity can climb and flower, but I've honestly never seen an example of a sestina that I really liked and which didn't seem tortured rather than nurtured by its form. I think the S₆ one is pretty clever, though.

By: cobra libre

cobra libre — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:34:36 -0800

Actually, watch the Pound video, too. It's from a documentary series on American poets called Voices and Visions, and the animation that accompanies Pound's reading illustrates well the shifting of end words from one stanza to the next.

By: Caduceus

Caduceus — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:48:53 -0800

To be fair, joannemerriam, I've never written a sestina where I didn't have the words provided for me by someone else. I seem to have a block where I can't pick my own words and make a coherent. My method of sestina writing is to get someone else to give me six words, which then define the subject of the poem in my mind, and I just... spit the poem out. So yeah, I guess it's a little OCD. Also, yours is excellent. Wolfdog: You must really not like villanelles, then, because (at least in my opinion) they're much hard to write without the poem seeming tortured by the form. I've written one of those, once, but it was mediocre if you were generous to it.

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:51:24 -0800

I once wrote a sestina that rhymed and had meter and it took longer than anything anyone has ever wrote, including the bible. I only will post it if Caduceus favorites this comment twice. Seriously--good stuff in this thread.

By: Caduceus

Caduceus — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:25:03 -0800

I favorited and flagged as fantastic, which I guess is about as good as you're going to get.

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:33:36 -0800

MetaFilter: throwing-of-the-gauntlet Don't blame me, blame cortex Sestinas are the triple-dog-dare Of the hard-core poetry fetishist An elite squad of attention whores 39 lines, same as in town And MetaFilter is my kind of town: The verbal running of the gauntlet The hunting of wild SEO whores The total assimilation of the cerebral cortex Rule 34b: Every AskMe subject has its fetishist I couldn't give you up on a dare But I fly where eagles dare A cultured, sophisticated, man about town A spy in the house of the MetaMeme fetishist A fist of fury in a 24-carat shame gauntlet Bane to mathowie, jessamyn, cortex Knight of the low road on a high, high whores But aren't we all pushers and whores? Fencing our stories for a wink and a dare Bite-sized samples of heart, spleen, and cortex First hit is free, party down, go to town Need more? You're looking a bit gaunt, let Me set up you up on account with my best Twitter fetishist But any spare tidbit can be elevated by some fetishist Maybe sharing too much doesn't really make us whores So much as hors d'oeuvres, a snack before the gauntlet A taste of the hive-mind for any who dare A drop of uptown honey on the way downtown Esprit de corps sex before the cortex Or do we just have the one MetaCortex, Now? Each of us a bean for the plate-of-beans fetishist? Is there only one beat left in all of Funkytown? In the land without tricks, all the treats are whores, But I digress: How dare I suggest that the hand is the prisoner of the gauntlet? Nice gauntlet, cortex. Guess we're dare fetishists, too. Cheapest whores in town.

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:13:09 -0800

Oh jeez twist my arm will you! ILL NEVER BREAKOK Here it is. SESTINA BLIZZARD OF '96 Abandoned cars are skirted with black icicles Along the service road. In the covered street The hobbled pigeons, wan and lackadaisical, Hop clumsily from foot to foot for heat. The air in his lungs so clean it's almost chemical, The boy on the bike, in answer, kicks both feet. CHANGE When you're young, Being Good means only: move your feet. Evil hangs around, pointed as an icicle— But melts. In middle age sin is a chemical Reaction: n to x and down that street Again the engine moves extruding heat And promises. The saint goes lackadaisical. DER SPIEGEL OF VIENNA, VA Der Wanderer of Schubert peels, lackadaisical From the wooden speakers...The old man taps his feet Then pauses at the phrase's end, dead heat Against the huddled orchestra as icicles Crash at the studio door...stink from the street Of acetate and other, older chemicals. CONVOCATION OF When summer performs its myriad alchemical Creations (Aaron's phrase "the Lazy-daze-ical Days" makes the party wince) our friends mistreat Their aging bods with wine til, slumped in defeat, Or weaving the canyon-dance on foot or bicycle They give in to whatever it is they've tried to cheat. COGNITIVE FEEDBACK What does a molecule know about the heat Of which it is a member, or the chemical Compound it binds, as, shall we say, an icicle Or hippie crystal—is it as lackadaisical As brain cells stuck in concert with the feet... Could consciousness suggest a two-way street? BLIZZARD OF '76 The boy on the bike digs both heels down the street, Stops at the service road. The last of his heat Uncovers as he looks back. World at his feet: Abandoned autos ooze their heart's black chemicals, The pigeons stumble, lost, lackadaisical The air's a prickle in his lungs like icicles. NOTE TO A NEIGHBOR I saw your icicle-white cat, its black feet As pure as chemicals, slip under the heat- Dead hedges, lackadaisical into the street. Never been published, so ⓒ2009 MC IllipTical Steven Burt DO NOT STEAL MY SWEET RHYMEZ kTHX

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:16:28 -0800

and for cthuljew: THE AUDACITY OF POOP Once when venturing into a stall to poop, a man next door to me was heard to poop as well, In listening to the stranger poop, for strange his poop was, I remarked, "Your poop, Good Sir, what is the deal? It's like the poop of a starving warthog forced to eat its own poop!" Replied the man, "You [poop] what is your [poop]- ing deal [poop]face? Don't you know it's rude as [poop] to speak to anyone who's straining to [poop]?" "Not as rude as using horrible words like [poop]!" I politely responded, and finished up my poop. Now, Metafilter, I put it you— for your poop- ular opinion rarely fails. Is poop- posefully disturbing a fellow pooper's poop- prietary rumination an impoop- priety? Or am I saintly? Poop John Paul was never called a nincompoop! [insert 3 more brilliant stanzas here and poop] Now, like a stoic seaman on the poop- deck, I await your chime of wisdom RE: Poop. Til then I poop and poop poop poopypoop..