Happy Poetry Friday! Welcome, everyone! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.)
You know, we Poetry Princesses organized our monthly challenges for this year at the end of 2017. And a sestina in July sounded just peachy. Really.
Then…real life. My husband and I moved on Monday, and July was a month of frantic packing, arranging, emailing, phone calling, boxing, budgeting, etc. To say the sestina suffered due to my distraction is fair!
I have liked writing sestinas in the past, though I find the form way too long. Still, it’s a fun challenge re-using the same end words over and over. But this month, I just could not get into it. And on top of that, the topic that emerged…ack! Anyway, I didn’t stick with any standard meter for every line. I just went for sound and feel while reading aloud, and I made some lines shorter so that it didn’t feel like I was writing a novel. (It still felt that way.)
Here is draft 3.
I’m looking forward to seeing what my Poetry Sisters have come up with.
Sara
Tanita
Tricia
Dear Andi is taking 2018 off, but she is here in spirit. And Kelly and Liz, I believe, had to step back from this month’s challenge due to all sorts of life stuff, joyful or stressful. The world keeps spinning around, despite our plans to find a few minutes of peace and stillness for poetry! (And sestinas need more than just a few minutes–oi.)
Click here to see all our previous Poetry Princesses collaborations.
Visit the amazing Mary Lee Hahn, fifth-grade teacher and exceptional poet, for the Poetry Friday Roundup today!
NOTE: My access to wi-fi, time, and workspace is still iffy! I will read and appreciate every comment but may not be able to reply.
11 Responses
Well, I have written sestinas before & they do go on and on, I agree, & sometimes it’s hard to wrap them up in a tight bow. I rather like that you broke some rules, told this story as perhaps it needs to be told, in floating thoughts that wander. If there was a crisis as I guess from that first part, I think I might be thinking randomly, too. I like it, Laura, and read it twice to enjoy it more that 2nd time. Hope your move is settling a bit, like you’ve found the knives and forks, the washcloths and underwear. Moving is so challenging. Wishing you good days!
What a powerful poem Laura–and perhaps sad ending. I just recently wrote a sestina, and I agree with Linda, they do go on and on. I would have enjoyed taking some liberty in mine as you did here. I especially like how you tied it together with the three ending lines. A tall poem task to manage with all else you had to do, thanks!
This is beautiful. I can understand your struggle with such a difficult form and with so much else happening in your life, but i am glad you persevered.
“her future fragile as a sunbeam” — a lovely, but tragic simile. Best wishes for the final stages of the move!
“the desert of her doctor’s face”–Wow! This is achingly sad but beautifully written.
Your poem did its job. It made me feel. Very powerful, Laura.
I like that you let yourself go wherever the form wanted. That’s a strength of sestinas—they encourage you to ramble and find things you might not otherwise. I also like that you let this poem be sad. Those opening lines prepare us for that.…and you follow through. Well done.
The sad command to Make A Wish… wow, working in a sunbeam’s fragility while it also is tough enough to bend and splinter light is beautiful and painful… Sometimes our strengths and our wishes are not enough. And yet we find another star, and wish again…
Happy unpacking.
Some dark thoughts in that poem, yet it bends toward the light like a flower.
I recently wrote my first sestina and found the form allowed me to hear the voice of the storyteller more clearly. That wandering is purposeful. Like others I am sad for this teacher who builds her days from tiny blocks and has a future as fragile as a sunbeam. Unfortunately, I know far too many people facing diagnoses these days.
You’ve done something beautiful with a difficult (at least for me) form.I like how heartbreak and hope intertwine in this poem–just as in life.