Hi folks,
Today I’m trying to write a Sestina for tomorrow’s poem. I don’t feel as much pressure writing for the next day somehow. Here is a spine poem that is up today for #MoP.
There are some modern spine poems up on the month of poetry site using kindles. They look so cool. And so does this jewellery box I got for my birthday.
Inspiration for tomorrow’s poem perhaps?
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | books, Catherine Johnson, poem, poetry, spine poem
That’s the COOLEST jewelry box ever! Inspiration indeed!
I know, I’m amazed and thrilled it’s perfectly me!
Ooohhh, what a cute jewelry box! Good luck with your sestina.
Finished, yay!
Yay! Can’t wait to read it.
I sent it by email, have you seen it?
Am going to have to look up Sestina, as I’m not familiar with the term. Love the jewelry box and will look forward to your poem — what a hoot!
Lovely books and lovely jewelry box! What is a Sestina?
Pat and Susanna, a Sestina is a poem of about six stanzas. The one I copied from had six and a half. The end words of each line switch with every stanza/verse, so you have to pay attention (that was hard lol). I wrote the last words down for each stanza before I wrote the stanza. It kind of goes last word of last line is the last word of the first line, then the top line goes next. it alternates up to the middle and you repeat that all the way through. I’ll find the structure to share with you tomorrow, so the owl poem will have to wait.
What a cool jewelry box! I was going to ask what the structure of a sestina is, so I’m glad someone else did.
It’s the hardest form I’ve tried. Next time I think I’ll pick a subject to write about so it has more substance
Here’s a sample of a sestina.
it’s a bit like playing chess:
Sestina
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.
Elizabeth Bishop
Submitted: Friday, January 03, 2003
Jeanne Poland
Thanks Jeanne! That’s the one I used as an example while I wrote mine.
I love owls–that is beautiful!!
Cool box!
Love the spine book poems!
I have never heard of a spine poem, but that is the coolest idea ever.