These three forms (VILLANELLE, PANTOUM, SESTINA) are described in both Rhyme's Reason and The Making of a Poem. I will not belabor the stringent formats... I trust you to look them up on your own and choose the one that speaks to you. In two of these forms (The Villanelle and Pantoum), whole lines are repeated (and a rhyme-scheme is also in place in the Villanelle)... in the sestina--it is just words, but don't let that fool you: NOT an easy form. Note how each of these forms has a capping or end gesture that tells you that it is wrapping up.
Forms like these need to be constructed a bit like puzzles... the words and the lines you choose to repeat have exponentially more weight than in a poem where they come up once or twice. Ask yourself -- under what conditions is such repetition not only useful but necessary? I will not ask for certain line lengths or rhythms, though you will see I think that these forms create their own sorts of rhythm through their woven structure.
Crafting these poems will teach you much about the importance of word choice, syntactical structure, and - of course - the glory and gore of how we "repeat stuff/repeat stuff/repeat stuff." The best of these forms can feel playful or urgent or clever (by switching up how lines/words are used) but the trick is to find the reason the form is necessary... to keep it from seeming like ONLY an elaborate exercise. This is by far the most mathematical week you will have with me. I wish you sanity in your endeavors.
Two of each below:
SESTINA by Elizabeth Bishop
September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.
She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,
It's time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac
on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.
It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.
But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.
Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.
SESTINA SESTINA by Adam LeFevre
The sestina is a difficult form
to master because of the excessive repetition
which usually seems gratuitous or else
makes the speaking voice sound downright mad.
Psychologists say madness characterizes our time.
That may be. For some reason the sestina
is an obsession of mine. My first sestina
was a complete failure. The form
tangled me in a net. By the time
I reached stanza two, the repetition
blabbed like an obnoxious drunk. I got so mad
I swore, and swore I’d write a good sestina or else.
I worked at nothing else,
only the sestina. Day and night, one insipid sestina
after another. Every one I made made me mad.
I should never have strayed from the open forms.
They seem like a fairyland now. Repetition
enchants the mind until time
itself seems to be a sestina. In no time
my universe was bound to six words and nothing else
mattered. That’s the danger or repetition.
It creates an illusion of eternity. The sestina
appears to be it’s own heaven. The form,
fulfilled, has the appeal. So does mad-
ness, psychologists say. But the mad
are their own poems. Their time
is malleable-no need to conform
to architecture designed by someone else.
The maker of sestinas
sulks under the weight of repetition,
flails in a snarl of repetition,
repeating himself like a nervous zodiac for his nomad
mind. So stay away from sestinas.
There are better ways to spend your time.
Write a novel. Take up the guitar. Or else
stifle your creative impulses altogether. Chloroform
the Muse! This form is a hungry monster.
Repetition wants something else every time. Six
mad kings and you, locked in a cell-that’s a sestina.
PANTOUM OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION by Donald Justice
Our lives avoided tragedy
Simply by going on and on,
Without end and with little apparent meaning.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
Simply by going on and on
We managed. No need for the heroic.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
I don't remember all the particulars.
We managed. No need for the heroic.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
I don't remember all the particulars.
Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows
Thank god no one said anything in verse.
The neighbors were our only chorus,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
At no time did anyone say anything in verse.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
No audience would ever know our story.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
What audience would ever know our story?
Beyond our windows shone the actual world.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
We did not ourselves know what the end was.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.
But we did not ourselves know what the end was.
People like us simply go on.
We have our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues,
But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.
And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.
PARENT'S PANTOUM by Carolyn Kizer
Where did these enormous children come from,
More ladylike than we have ever been?
Some of ours look older than we feel.
How did they appear in their long dresses
More ladylike than we have ever been?
But they moan about their aging more than we do,
In their fragile heels and long black dresses.
They say they admire our youthful spontaneity.
They moan about their aging more than we do,
A somber group--why don't they brighten up?
Though they say they admire our youthful spontaneity
They beg us to be dignified like them
As they ignore our pleas to brighten up.
Someday perhaps we'll capture their attention
Then we won't try to be dignified like them
Nor they to be so gently patronizing.
Someday perhaps we'll capture their attention.
Don't they know that we're supposed to be the stars?
Instead they are so gently patronizing.
It makes us feel like children--second-childish?
Perhaps we're too accustomed to be stars.
The famous flowers glowing in the garden,
So now we pout like children. Second-childish?
Quaint fragments of forgotten history?
Our daughters stroll together in the garden,
Chatting of news we've chosen to ignore,
Pausing to toss us morsels of their history,
Not questions to which only we know answers.
Eyes closed to news we've chosen to ignore,
We'd rather excavate old memories,
Disdaining age, ignoring pain, avoiding mirrors.
Why do they never listen to our stories?
Because they hate to excavate old memories
They don't believe our stories have an end.
They don't ask questions because they dread the answers.
They don't see that we've become their mirrors,
We offspring of our enormous children.
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
VILLANELLE FOR D.G.B. by Marilyn Hacker
Every day our bodies separate,
exploded torn and dazed.
Not understanding what we celebrate
we grope through languages and hesitate
and touch each other, speechless and amazed;
and every day our bodies separate
us farther from our planned, deliberate
ironic lives. I am afraid, disphased,
not understanding what we celebrate
when our fused limbs and lips communicate
the unlettered power we have raised.
Every day our bodies' separate
routines are harder to perpetuate.
In wordless darkness we learn wordless praise,
not understanding what we celebrate;
wake to ourselves, exhausted, in the late
morning as the wind tears off the haze,
not understanding how we celebrate
our bodies. Every day we separate.
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