Sea and Stars: Writing the Sestina

A long time ago, when I first came across Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “Sestina,” I didn’t realize that the title referred to the poem’s form. I thought that “Sestina” was, perhaps, the grandmother’s first name—a different form, if you will, of the name “Tina” – “In the failing light, the old grandmother / sits in the kitchen with the child.” 

Once I understood that a sestina is a specific poetic form, however, I decided I would write one. How hard could it be? Well, yeah. I’ve yet to write a sestina I was happy with. It’s a form that’s gotten the best of me every time.

The Handbook of Poetic Forms defines a sestina as having “six unrhymed stanzas of six lines each in which the words at the ends of the first stanza’s lines recur in a rolling pattern at the ends of all the other lines. The sestina then concludes with a tercet (three-line stanza) that also uses all six end-words, two to a line.” Although technically accurate, I think you will agree that this description leaves a lot to be desired, in terms of actually understanding how to write a sestina.

I was intrigued, therefore, by Terrance Hayes’s article, “Your Do-It-Yourself Sestina,” at the Poetry Foundation’s website. The subtitle perfectly reflected my feelings about the sestina: “I almost always anticipate failure or boredom when I attempt the sestina. It’s among my favorite forms.” It’s true, the sestina is one of my favorite forms, but as an admirer of other people’s work, not my own.

I enjoy writing in forms because, as Hayes puts it, “As in almost every excursion into form, I hope simply to be surprised and challenged.” Forms do surprise, and they certainly challenge. I love how the repeating lines of pantoums and villanelles create their own weird logic, and how a formal poem often delivers more poetic satisfaction than free verse. As Hayes writes, “The sestina’s numerological architecture and lexical repetition create a lyrical, potentially alchemical energy.” 

In his article, Hayes takes us through the Phillips Collection Museum in Washington, DC, commenting in poetry on six paintings. This makes his “DIY” sestina also an ekphrastic poem, combining two forms in one. There follows a diagram of teleutons (the end words) envisioned as a “linguistic slot machine of multiple teleutons rotating on the gears of your input.”

It seems to me that this would be an extremely fun activity for a hot summer day: take yourself to your nearest (air-conditioned) museum or gallery, find six paintings that move you in some way, and then write a sestina based on them. Choosing the teleutons bridge, river, field, tunnel, sea and stars, Hayes wrote six stanzas, each inspired by a different painting. In the process, he changed the end words slightly—i.e., “sea” became “see,” “field” became “fill”—and thus stretched the limitations of the sestina in a playful way.

Here’s “Face Down by Martin Puryear, 2008:”

Head downhill into the valley avoiding where floodwaters fill
The lanes. Every hole in the ground is an unfinished tunnel.
Take a shovel for burying seeds & bodies beneath the bridge.
Take just the front half of your face & say what you see
When you lower it into a basin of river lit by lightning & stars.
Follow signs of the creatures who live at the edge of the river.

I’m newly inspired to try an ekphrastic sestina.

Have you written a sestina? Please share any tips! Thank you.