How to Write a Sestina
I love sharing different poetic forms in poetry workshops for people to try and experiment with. What can appear daunting to begin with when you see a line of numbers down the side of the page can reveal words, phrases and meaning you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.
The sestina was invented by twelfth-century mathematician and troubadour Arnaud Daniel and the form has survived and is written by many contemporary poets. A famous example is Sestina by Elizabeth Bishop.
The sestina is a poem made of six stanzas of six lines each, plus a three-line envoi, which sums up what the poet wants to say. The interesting thing is that six words are used as end words in a different order in each stanza. The order of the end words is set and always the same.
This is a great exercise to think about and practice using significant line end words when writing poetry. The trick with the sestina is to pick six words that can be used in different ways with different meanings each time as the poem unfolds. In workshops, we read the poems out loud and the repetition of the words often adds an emotional resonance and depth to the piece.
Once you have your six words, then number them 1 to 6 or you can use letters if you prefer. To create my example in the PDF download, I used an unfinished poem to practice the form as I had the words all ready. I recommend this to get started. Once you have the hang of it, you can begin to think about which form suits the poem that wants to be written.
The order of the end words is this:
1 2 3 4 5 6
6 1 5 2 4 3
3 6 4 1 2 5
5 3 2 6 1 4
4 5 1 3 6 2
2 4 6 5 3 1
Envoi
1 and 2
3 and 4
5 and 5
It is strangely compelling when read out loud. In his book, The Ode Less Travelled, Stephen Fry says it is like a spiral. I can’t really see that right now, but after my powerful spiral writing workshop, I am on the look out for spiral symbolism, so will come back to that thought!