The Sestina is a highly structured poem, and while I love structured poetry, this is one form I’ve never managed to successfully pull-off. I’m hoping, that if it’s a NaNoLJers exercise I’ll have a bit more luck

This week’s Friday challenge is to write a Sestina.

Wikipedia defines a Sestina as: A sestina is a highly structured poem consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet (called its envoy or tornada), for a total of thirty-nine lines. The same set of six words ends the lines of each of the six-line stanzas, but in a different order each time; if we number the first stanza’s lines 123456, then the words ending the second stanza’s lines appear in the order 615243, then 364125, then 532614, then 451362, and finally 246531. This organization is referred to as retrogradatio cruciata (”retrograde cross”). These six words then appear in the tercet as well, with the tercet’s first line usually containing 1 and 2, its second 3 and 4, and its third 5 and 6 (but other versions exist, described below). English sestinas are usually written in iambic pentameter or another decasyllabic meter.

I know that sounds incredibly confusing — but bear with me, we’ll sort it all out.

First of all, it’s not necessary to write a Sestina in metered verse, it’s nice and that’s the traditional format, but convention has evolved to the point that un-metered verse is also, generally, considered acceptable. If meter comes easily to you then by all means write it, however, if it’s something you struggle with — forget about it for now. Once you’ve mastered the un-metered Sestina you can always go back and challenge yourself further by trying to write one in iambic pentameter

Now you need to chose the six words the lines of your Sestina are going to end in. From what I’ve read it’s usually recommended that you start off with concrete nouns (desk, window, dog) and active verbs (scampers, pounces, flips). Remember that you are going to have to repeat these words throughout the course of the poem, so try to pick words that have more than one meaning, or are flexible in their use.

Next you need to make a template for your Sestina — to map out what words are going to end which lines. Start this out by creating the first six-line stanza and then going from there and then sort out what the structure of your next stanzas will look like from that. Need help? I know I will. I found this handy tool –> Sestinas: Browse or Build Your Own that will create the template for you once you plug in your word choices.

Just in case that page ever stops working, the format would look like this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 – End words of lines in first sestet.
6 1 5 2 4 3 – End words of lines in second sestet.
3 6 4 1 2 5 – End words of lines in third sestet.
5 3 2 6 1 4 – End words of lines in fourth sestet.
4 5 1 3 6 2 – End words of lines in fifth sestet.
2 4 6 5 3 1 – End words of lines in sixth sestet.
6 2) (1 4) (5 3) – Middle and end words of lines in tercet.

(this table is courtesy of Poetry Form: The Sestina)

Voila! You’re ready to go.

The Sestina is an awkward form and is usually considered pretentious and ungainly, but maybe that’s what compels me to write one, a good one. Or, maybe I just like the challenge. No, it’s the pretension — it’s got to be the pretension

Good luck.

Sestina Resources:
Sestinas: Browse or Build Your Own
Sestina
Verse Forms: Sestina
Sestina Directory