Tag Archives: 39 lines

Newman Sestina

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The Newman sestina is a standard Sestina (See Here) with only the following added requirement:  Each of the six keywords Must Be an anagram of one another.
Newman sestina
This is a standard (unrhymed) sestina in which all the keywords are anagrams of one another. I was challenged to write such a thing by one of my son’s school friends. Just to prove it can be done: 
Rambling in Tresco
A Scilly sestina
Last Wednesday there were questions in the Cortes
From Miguel Martinez, MP and coster,
Concerning an endangered fowl, the scoter,
Much traded in the thriving private sector,
Delicious roasted in a bacon corset,
A dish so prized it merits an armed escort. 
Martinez left for home in his Ford Escort.
Alas, he’ll speak no more before the Cortes,
For Semtex slyly planted in his corset
Was detonated by another coster
With interests in the wildfowl trading sector,
A specialist in ptarmigan and scoter. 
What virtue, to lay down one’s life for scoter!
May choirs of angels strum their harps and escort
This hero straight to heaven’s swishest sector!
Meanwhile, his bill’s in trouble in the Cortes –
No sponsor since we lost our gallant coster;
Debating time’s as tight as any corset. 
“The currency regime we call the corset
Is more important far than any scoter.”
So says the Chancellor. But wait! Our coster
Has friends who know some girls who sometimes escort
The Chancellor when he’s not in the Cortes,
Who work in, shall we say, the private sector 
And also in the Chancellor’s privates sector,
And wear the most suggestive style of corset.
A scandal! And the Chancellor quits the Cortes
Thus leaving ample time to save the scoter.
Relief, my ducks, as into law they escort
The bill so ably drafted by the coster. 
So honour be to Martinez the coster
Great benefactor of the wildfowl sector!
For thanks to him birds get an Air Force escort.
(It’s cheaper than the monetary corset).
His name shall be the toast of every scoter.Right wondrous are the doings of the Cortes!
Now like stout Cortes in the Darien sector,
I marvel at the coster and the corset,
And at the scoter flying with their escort.
Manifold magazine held a competition for poems in this ridiculous form, which the editor named the Newman sestina in my honour.
 
© Bob Newman 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. All rights reserved
My thanks always to Bob Newman for his wonderful resource.

 
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Sestina – Conventional

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The sestina (less commonly, though more correctly, sextain) is a wondrous strange beast, the brainchild of a twelfth-century Provençal troubador. It doesn’t use rhyme; instead, it has six keywords essential to the poem’s structure. The poem’s 39 lines – six 6-line stanzas followed by a 3-line envoi or tornada – all end with one of the keywords; in the tornada, there are two keywords in each line, one of them at the end and the other somewhere in the middle. It may all begin to make sense if we try an example.
stanza 1: 123456
stanza 2: 615243
stanza 3: 364125
stanza 4: 532614
stanza 5: 451362
stanza 6: 246531
This is the prescribed order for a sestina – at least, for an unrhymed one. (Yes, there are rhymed ones too. This is a variation dealt with later.) No deviation from this order is tolerated.
However, there are several different possible orders for the keywords in the tornada (“tornada schemes“).
The popular schemes are 12/34/56, 14/25/36, 25/43/61 and 65/24/31. Pretty well anything goes, really.
You’ll notice that each keyword appears once in the first line of a stanza, once in the second line of a stanza, and so on. You may also notice that the permutations of the keywords follow a regular pattern. It’s all a bit like bell-ringing. Or mathematical group theory, for that matter.
At 39 lines, the sestina is eligible for poetry competitions with a 40-line limit. (Perhaps they used to have a lot of those in Provence.)
The greatest thanks to Bob Newman of Volecentral for this.  His site is an excellent resource.
My Example
Forget Me, She Said ( A Sestina)
I forgot to remember you had left.
Your need to grow required that you must go
find space unoccupied.  I neither made
you whole nor satisfied your unquenched thirst.
“Just forget me; go play and have some fun,”
You told me, “You’re a prize for someone new.”
I’d never even wanted someone new
and still did not, once you had really left.
My love for you, I should replace with fun
and sparkle like a dandy on the go.
“Just forget me; let hotties quench your thirst.
You’ll be the grandest catch that someone’s made.”
Attempts to dissuade you were often made
for weeks while you sought something somewhere new.
But only total change could quell your thirst.
And memories were all that I had left.
Without sharia law you’re free to go
and with it, holding you would be no fun.
Then, for my boys, I dated, and had fun.
I was astounded by the progress made
as I was learning dating on the go.
Once my small son asked “Will she be our new
mommy?” At least he’d realized you’d left.
I began courting with a new found thirst.
Forever buoyed by an abiding thirst
for laughs enjoyed when shared, my quest was fun.
I laid my love for you aside. That left
a vacancy and soon fresh feeling made
inroads to my reluctant heart and new
responses sang as guilt began to go.
Your leaving forced me to let my love go
as death could not have done.  So, now a thirst
was normal and not faithless search for new
absolution perhaps just based in fun.
When not allowed to keep the promise made
New love was deemed okay because you left.
The fact you had to go was never fun.
I hope you’ve quenched the thirst inside that made
you leave. I’ve loved in new ways since you left.
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Sestina – Rhymed

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The Rhymed Sestina
The most important recognized sestina variant is the rhymed sestina, which was devised by Swinburne. Here keywords 1, 3 and 5 rhyme with each other, as do keywords 2, 4 and 6. The permutations are revised so that every stanza has the same rhyming scheme ababab. In terms of the keywords, the revised structure is:
stanza 1: 123456
stanza 2: 614325
stanza 3: 561432
stanza 4: 256143
stanza 5: 321654
stanza 6: 432561
tornada:  14/23/56
This is the structure that MUST be used if you write a rhymed sestina and
should NOT be used for an un-rhymed sestina.
Example Poem
Checking Your List       ( Rhymed Sestina )
I think today I’ll itemize our woes
then tomorrow I’ll pick out one to solve.
I can accomplish that much I suppose
if I approach the problem with resolve.
I’ll Itemize the problems in neat rows
then find the means to make them all dissolve.
All things that are soluble will dissolve.
If I can disassemble all our woes
I should find components we can resolve.
An ordered list is needed, I suppose
For surely world-wide problems I can’t solve.
I must therefore prioritize my rows
Put those deemed easiest in the top rows
A solution makes most all things dissolve.
A binding to insolubles makes woes
an aggregate resistant to resolve.
We must demote those woes I shall suppose
reserving strength for those we’re apt to solve,
Fixating on what we expect to solve
al lows us to dispose of early rows
and thus our will to win will not dissolve.
Our work will soon disclose imposing woes
Solutions will evolve, building resolve.
Some I’ll solve while in repose, I suppose.
I suspect there’s no reason to suppose
discouragement over those we can’t solve
won’t whittle our will, (and add to our woes).
Don’t add that to the list.  It will dissolve.
Wiggle your toes when progress slows on rows;
Think of Poe’s work or write prose with resolve.
Decide to ignore the list with resolve.
Some solutions one surely should suppose
will spring from things we’re not trying to solve.
At last unchangeables fill all our rows
World-wide differences will not dissolve.
Omit God’s will and nature from your woes .
I think the woes I know I can resolve
I’ll quickly solve forever, I suppose.
Concern for rows remaining will dissolve.
  © Lawrencealot – January 12, 2013)
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