3. TERMS 17-23
17. Shakespearian or English Sonnet
A fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter. The
Shakespearean or English sonnet is arranged as three
quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.
18. The Petrarchan or Italian Sonnet A fourteen-line poem in
iambic pentameter. It is divided into two parts: an eight-line
octave and a six-line sestet, rhyming abba abba cde cde or
abba abba cd cd cd (or other combination of cde).
4. 19. Stanza
A division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same
form--either with similar or identical patterns or rhyme
and meter, or with variations from one stanza to another.
20. Couplet
A pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a
separate stanza in a poem. Shakespeare's sonnets end in
rhymed couplets, as in "For thy sweet love remembered
such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my
with kings."
21. Quatrain
A four-line stanza in a poem, the first four lines and the
second four lines in a Petrarchan sonnet. A
Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains followed
by a couplet.
5. 22.Octave
An eight-line unit, which may constitute a
stanza; or a section of a poem, as in the
octave of a sonnet.
23.Sestet
A six-line unit of verse constituting a stanza
section of a poem; the last six lines of an
Italian sonnet. Examples: Petrarch's "If it is not
love, then what is it that I feel," and Frost's
"Design."
7. SESTINA CONVENTIONS
The sestina makes no demands on the poet in terms of meter or rhyme or foot. Its
requirements border on the mathematical and its prescriptions are mainly syntactical.
In Questions of Possibility: Contemporary Poetry and Poetic Form, David Caplan explains,
The opening stanza introduces six endwords […]
which repeat through the six sestets. Starting with the
second sestet, each stanza duplicates the previous
stanza’s endwords in the following order: last, first, fifth,
second, fourth, then third. […] By the poem’s end, each
end word appears in all six lines. Finally […] the
concluding [stanza] features two endwords in each of its
three lines, one as an endword and one in the middleof the
line (18).
8. Sestina by Elizabeth Bishop
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
A
B
C
D
E
F
F
A
E
B
D
C
C
F
D
A
B
E
12. • Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own
way. —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877; trans. Constance Garnett)
• I am an invisible man. —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
• The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. —L. P.
Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)
• This is the saddest story I have ever heard. —Ford Madox Ford, The
Good Soldier (1915)
• All this happened, more or less. —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
(1969)
• Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. —
Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye (1988)
• You better not never tell nobody but God. —Alice Walker, The Color
Purple (1982)
• It was love at first sight. —Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)
• Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned
into the wrong person. —Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups
(2001)
Choose a topic from great first novel lines
13. Choose at least some words that several different meanings: ex.
"mean”
Choose words that can be used as either nouns, verbs, or adjectives:
ex. "swell”
Choose one word that is so innocuous it can be put practically
anywhere. Prepositions are good for this: ex. "down”
Choose one polysyllabic word that is highly specific to your subject
matter. (This will be the hardest one to rotate but it will contrast
artistically with the others: ex. “Medicine”
Choose a word that either rhymes or alliterates with one of your other
words: ex. “well”
Choose a power-word, which will likely end your poem: ex “die”
Choosing End WordsSore Throat Sestina
14. Choose concrete nouns to include
in your poemDemon
Bug
Virus
Neck
Throat
Tonsils
Mumps
Scarlet Fever
Strep Throat
Husband
Internet
Doctor
These will be good
descriptors in the
poem
15. —Here is a list of the endwords: mean, swell, down, medicine, well
and die.
At this point, you don’t have to decide the order of the other words
because you are going to write the end of your poem first.
The trick to avoiding bad endings in a sestina is to write a devastatingly
brilliant ending and then work toward it. You can always rewrite it if it
turns out not to fit your needs.
Oh don't be mean! There must be medicine
I can put down this throat to make me well
or it will swell and swell until I die.
Write the Ending First
16. Start at the
beginning now!
This morning I woke up as if a mean
demon in the night had slithered down
my neck. My tonsils had begun to swell.
I moaned; I coughed; I drank some medicine
naively thinking I would soon feel well.
Ten minutes on I still thought I might die.
First Stanza
A
B
C
D
E
F
Now your order has been determined!
17. Second Stanza
"Oh come on silly. You're not going to die,"
my husband said. He wasn't being mean.
The thing is, I'm the one who's always well.
He isn't used to seeing me go down
with nasty bugs or swallow medicine.
"Soon," he said, "Once more you'll feel just swell."
Note: try and avoid end-stopping all the lines, another common beginner's
mistake. Note that the first line continues into the second. Also, line four flows
into five.
F
A
E
B
D
C
18. But my left tonsil continued to swell
all morning. I knew no-one ever died
of a sore throat, and yet no medicine
was soothing it. What could this symptom mean?
I started feeling more and more cast down
and wondered if I would ever get well.
Note the use of "swell” as a verb in this stanza.
Note that “die” changed to "died" in this stanza. All but the most purist of
sestina-writers would agree that this is acceptable.
C
F
D
A
B
E
Third Stanza
19. Only one thing to do: consult the well
of information on the Internet. That swelling
cyberspace would help me pin this down
(or tell me just how long before I die).
I googled sore throat symptom, and the meaning
of this popped out on medicine.com
The author has used "swelling" for "swell" and
"meaning" for "mean.” She has also really pushed the
boundaries by adding ".com" to "medicine.”
Fourth Stanza
E
C
B
F
A
D
20. It could be Mumps! And there's no medicine
to take for that. Just waiting to get well
but all the time in pain. What kind of mean,
sadistic virus is this? This is swell:
it could be Strep Throat. I could even die
of Scarlet Fever. Now I'm feeling down.
So in ten minutes I am going down
to see the doctor. Maybe medicine
will stop me feeling like I want to die.
Oh to be strong, and tonsil-less, and well!
Oh for a pill to reduce this nasty swelling.
Oh for someone to tell me what this means.
Stanzas five and six
D
E
A
C
F
B
B
D
F
E
C
A
21. Now look back at the end stanza you wrote in the beginning:
Oh don't be mean! There must be medicine
I can put down this throat to make me well
or it will swell and swell until I die.
Take a moment to revise:
And if the mean Doc says no medicine
he can pour down this throat will make me well,
but time. Oh swell! All this pain and I can't die.
A D
B E
C F
Thanks to Anna Evans, The Barefoot Muse, for help with writing a Sestina.
