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How to Write a Sestina by ~LadyEponine:iconLadyEponine:



In order to write a sestina,
you must start by being unsure,
quickly switching from cold to hot
to cold and to hot again,
the temperature being like a cat
in the Sahara desert at dusk.

Sit on your porch at dusk,
watch the clouds create their sestinas.
As you watch, allow your cat
beside you, her tongue lapping unsurely
from a cup. Look up again,
wonder if milk would be hot

if left out. It is hot;
There is a heat about dusk.
Forget. Forget about the poem again,
Look around. Everywhere, there are sestinas.
Not just in the cool, unsure
ripples your cat

makes, the gentle clink clink your cat’s
teeth make as she tips her hot
tongue against her cup. In unsure
clouds, sestinas. Not just in dusk
either. And mosquitoes make stinging sestinas.
Crumple a sheet of paper. Again.

Now throw it out, again and again.
Eventually, sensing a toy, your cat
will chase it. Wonder what a sestina
really is. The pen will feel hot
in your hand. Take some paper. Dusk
is now ending; Be absolutely sure

this time you will write it. Surely,
you will crumple it up again.
Don’t get a flashlight, it’s still dusk;
the lines are blurry. Your cat
will inspect you, her paws hot
against your arm. Write. This sestina

won’t write itself. No sestina does. Surely
by now you know that, how hot the pen feels, how again
you are unsure. And when dusk is over and your cat is bored it will be done.
©2004-2010 ~LadyEponine
:iconladyeponine:

Author's Comments

"How to Write a Sestina" is, you guessed it, a sestina. The story of this poem is that i was obssessed with Sestinas. So I decided I would write one that I liked. I wrote one every day for six days and on the sixth day, this one appears (signifigance of the number 6 is within the form.) I wrote my sestina and now i am content with having wrote a sestina i like.

Daily Deviation

Given 2008-10-01

I couldn't believe it when I found How to Write a Sestina by ~LadyEponine. It's not everyday you find a sestina that is the perfect blend of (poetic) logic and absolute bizarreness. And no, this isn't a guide on how to write sestinas, or perhaps it is. Either way, it's a delicious bit of metapoetry that describes a writing process that is all too familiar to me. Enjoy! (Featured by `lovetodeviate)

Comments


love 2 2 joy 1 1 wow 1 1 mad 0 0 sad 0 0 fear 0 0 neutral 0 0
:iconyuta:
I like the word "sestina"... i ddint knwo what it was, but Im gwessing its a six-verse poeam... I like your cat.

--
I hate fakes... therefore, I hate you.
:iconladyeponine:
it's a certain form of poetry. really complicated, i don't feel like explaining it. It is a cool word tho, isn't it?

Ah, but too bad Ether is an imaginary cat.
:icontyrsia:
Ah, now that is a beautiful sestina. I love it! Makes me want to try to write one again.
:iconmystakaphoros:
It's like... a... META-SESTINA! Which sounds sort of like a kind of cancer.

It's growing on me!

--
"I guess I'm an underwater thing,
so I guess I can't take it personally."
--Tori Amos, "Liquid Diamonds"
:iconjamiedemo:
I'm obsessed with sestinas too!
:iconmalicedomestic:
I love this. I enjoy writing sestinas quite a lot, but I've never written an unrhymed one. Hmm, I think I'll do that now.

--
Never again. I needed to turf out the blighter, the beater or biter who'd come like lamb to the slaughter to Salome's bed.
:iconbeccalicious:
This is fantastic! I tried to write a sestina once, but never again! Wonderfully crafted and a well-deserved Daily Deviation, well done!

--
*Writers-Workshop
#getLIT

'If there's no ladder to climb, there's no ladder to fall off'
:iconbeccalicious:
Also, you're a true writer. There are always cats involved.

--
*Writers-Workshop
#getLIT

'If there's no ladder to climb, there's no ladder to fall off'
:iconthebitchinwitch:
Sestinas make my head hurt to write.

But I loved reading this one!

--
~Willikins
:iconriversprite:
This is just fantastic.
An admirable and fitting sixth attempt.

--
Your playing small does not serve the world.

Details

July 17, 2004
1.7 KB

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