The Sestina Sonnet is written in ten-syllable lines (usually iambic pentameter) and is structured with three stanzas; three quatrains(four-line stanzas) and a concluding couplet(a two-line stanza). The interesting thing about the Sestina Sonnet is that it actually doesn’t rhyme. It retains the Sestina qualities by repeating the end-words of lines throughout the piece.
The four words that end the lines of the first stanza, end the lines of the other two stanzas, in a different order each time. The last stanza, uses two of those words per line, with one in the middle and one at the end of the line.
Example poem
Tell Me of Your Anger in Whispers (Sestina Sonnet)
Don’t start a message with an angry word
for voice will carry tones that are not right
for saying what is needed to be heard.
An angry start can last until the night.
Daytime travails get pushed away at night
and ‘ere we sleep all problems should be heard.
Tell me I’ve goofed without an angry word.
We’ll fix it, regardless of who is right.
Experience shows that you’re usually right
unless you misunderstood deed or word.
A certain magic when we talk at night
yields solutions from voices that are heard.
You will be heard and things will work out right.
Tell me at night by way of whispered word.
© Lawrencealot – 2012
Visual Templates ( I have included one for Trochaic meter too)
