[stylist] Memorial Day

[Bridgit Pollpeter via stylist]

Jackie,

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but a sestina relies on the repitition
of certain words throughout the poem. I can't remember the exact number
of words you choose, but you follow a pattern using them throughout the
poem. I do not believe there is a limit to line length. The Dictionary
of Poetic Terms says the following about sestinas:

329 sestina
septenary (from Latin for "seven of each"; similarly used terms are
heptameter and fourteeners) a seven-foot line usually in trochaic
rhythm. The English Poema Morale (Moral Ode, 1200-50) is an early
example of rhymed couplets in the s. form. The term s. also refers
specifically to Medieval Latin verse and other religious works written
in the vernacular, such as the Ormulum (1200s), a 10,000-line poem by
Orm, an Augustin-ian monk who paraphrased the gospels for services. See
forms in Appendix 1.
septet (from Latin for "seven") a stanza of seven lines. The rhyme
scheme and meter may vary. A specific form of the s. is the chaucer
stanza (also known as rhyme royal or troilus stanza) used by Chaucer,
Shakespeare, and King James I of Scotland, among others. See also forms
in Appendix 1.
sestet (from Latin for "six") a poem composed of six lines, or a stanza
of six lines, as in the Italian sonnet. Specific s. stanza forms include
the stave of six, written in iambic tetrameter; the Venus and Adonis
stanza, named after Shakespeare's poem of that title; rime couee (or
tail-rhyme stanza) of mixed iambic tetrameter and trimeter; and the
burns stanza. See sestina. See also forms in Appendix 1.
sestina (Italian for "sixth") an unrhymed fixed form consisting of six
sestets with a concluding three-line envoy. In addition, the six
end-words of the first stanza are repeated in the following stanzas in a
special order, as exemplified in Robert Francis' Hallelujah: A Sestina:
A wind's word, the Hebrew Hallelujah.
I wonder they never gave it to a boy
(Hal for short) boy with wind-wild hair.
It means Praise God, as well it should since praise
Is what God's for. Why didn't they call my father
Hallelujah instead of Ebenezer?
Eben, of course, but christened Ebenezer Product of Nova Scotia
(hallelujah). Daniel, a country doctor, was his father And my father his
tenth and final boy. A baby and last, he had a baby's praise: Red
petticoat, red cheeks, and crow-black hair.
A boy has little say about his hair And little about a name like
Ebenezer Except that he can shorten either. Praise God for that, for
that shout Hallelujah. Shout Hallelujah for everything a boy Can be that
is not his father or grandfather.
But then, before you know it, he is a father Too and passing on his
brand of hair To one more perfectly defenseless boy, Dubbing him John or
James or Ebenezer But never, so far as I know, Hallelujah, As if God
didn't need quite that much praise.
But what I'm coming to--Could I ever praise My father half enough for
being a father Who let me be myself? Sing hallelujah.
setting 330
Preacher he was with a prophet's head of hair And what but a prophet's
name was Ebenezer However little I guessed it as a boy?
The complicated form is thought to have been invented by the Provencal
troubadour Arnaud Daniel and later was brought into English
versification. With variations, it has been used by many poets,
including Sydney, Swinburne, Kipling, Auden, Pound, Donald Justice, and
W.D. Snodgrass. The double s. is a variant form consisting of 12
stanzas. For other specialized forms, see fixed forms and French forms.
See also forms in Appendix 1.
setting the environment (including physical place, historical period,
ambience, and cultural class) of a literary work. The Greek term opsis
(scene) describes the physical manifestations of the place in which the
action occurs; a general s. creates the entire frame of the work, and
specific settings are attached to the various episodes within the work.
For example, in Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the general
s. is said to be that of Haymarket Square in Boston. Within this
environment, apartments, the rooms of a museum, other houses, and a
beach make up specific settings. The air of defeat and boredom (see
mood) that permeates the poem, and the upper-class characters add to the
s. See atmosphere, dramatic structure, local color, locale, narration,
and regionalism. See also dramatic terms in Appendix 1.
Shakespearean sonnet: See English sonnet and sonnet.
shaping the act of gradually forming a poem through revision. See form,
line ending, redaction, stanza, and structure.
short couplet a pair of rhymed lines in iambic or trochaic tetrameter,
so-called because it is shorter than the heroic couplet of iambic
pentameter lines. See couplet and tetrameter. See also forms in Appendix
1.
short measure or short meter an iambic quatrain rhyming abcb with lines
one, two, and four in iambic trimeter, and line three in iambic
tetrameter:
My girl, thou gazest much
Upon the golden skies: Would I were heaven! I would behold
Thee then with all mine eyes!
The short hymnal stanza rhymes abab in the same metrical pattern. The
form takes its name from the long meter, common meter or common measure,
or hymnal stanza which rhymes abcb all in iambic tetrameter. The long
ballad stanza rhymes either abab or abcb in iambic tetrameter. A
corresponding form is the poulter's measure, composed of alternating 12-
and 14-syllable lines. See ballad meter.
sibilants (from Latin "to hiss, to whistle") consonants that make a
hissing sound, such as 1st, Izl, 1)1, and /sh/. The term sibilance
refers to a prevalence of these sounds in a passage of literature; and
the term sigmatism (repetition of the Isl sound) refers to a defect in
the sound of a poem because of a prevalence of whistling sounds (see
cacophony). The use of sibilants can have a musical effect: E.A. Poe,
e.g., used the Isl sound in 27 331     Si... quand
of the lines of the Valley of Unrest. Traditionally, the sound is said
to symbolize evil and to evoke the sound of a snake. See assonance and
consonance.
sight rhyme: See eye-rhyme.
sigmatism (from the 18th letter of the Greek alphabet, sigma, which is
equivalent to the English s) generally, lisping; in literature, a defect
in the sonic quality of a passage because of the prevalence of hissing
sounds. Tennyson called his efforts to keep the /s/ sound at a minimum,
"kicking the geese out of the boat." See sibilants. See also assonance
and consonance.
simile /sim'ile/ (from Latin for "like") a rhetorical and poetical
figure of speech in which particular attributes of one thing are
explicitly compared with particular attributes of another thing, usually
using the words "like," "as," or "as if to link up tenor and vehicle.
The main differences between the s. and metaphor are that (1) the s.
does not attempt to use its vehicle as an identity or substitution, but
simply as a comparison, (2) s. is a form of extension while metaphor is
a form of compression, and (3) the construction of s. displays a
characteristic tentativeness, while the metaphor displays a sense of
directness and certainty. The s. is comparatively rare in Anglo-Saxon
literature and became popular as a trope during the English Medieval
period, as in the following example from Chaucer's Complaint to his
Purse:
Or see youre colour, lik the sonne bright, That of yelownesse hadde
nevere peere.
See epic s. See also figurative expressions in Appendix 1.
simultaneity /slmultane 'ite/ (from Latin for "at the same time") the
presentation of two or more styles, voices, themes, or plots at the same
time. The term also refers to the Buddhist concentric sense of time, as
found in the / Ching, in which nonrecurrent, recurrent, and eternal time
frames coexist. See the related terms collage, multeity, and thematic
montage.
Si... quand /selcaNV (French for "if... when") a variant of the cadavre
exquis ("exquisite corpse") poetry game invented by French Surrealists.
As Andre Breton described s.q.:
Each of a number of players writes on a piece of paper a hypothetical
phrase beginning with "if or "when." On another he writes a proposition
in the future or conditional tense. The game consists simply in bringing
together one of the first phrases with one of the second. What results
is a sentence containing two clauses impeccably related from the
grammatical point of view but-having been associated by a chance process
acknowledging no rights in accepted logic-not satisfying to the demands
of rational sequence:
If there were no guillotine, Wasps would take off their corsets.
If octopuses wore bracelets, Boats would be drawn by flies.
When aeronauts will have attained the seventh heaven, Statues will order
themselves cold suppers.


Bridgit