Sestina Poetry Form

The first time I ever heard of this form was during the Writer’s Digest PAD (poem a day) challenge back in April 2006 and anyone who was reading my blog back then will remember how much I loved it (not!). It’s not really as bad as it looks, in fact the form can be kind of fun.

The Sestina, created by French troubadour Arnaut Daniel, consists of 39 lines divided into 6 sestets and one triplet, called the envoi. It is normally unrhymed - instead, the six end-words of the first stanza are picked up and reused as the end-words of the following stanzas in a specific order. In the envoi, one end-word is buried in each line, and one is at the end of each line.

Lines may be of any length, although their length is usually consistent in a single poem. The six words that end each of the lines of the first stanza are repeated in a different order at the end of lines in each of the subsequent five stanzas.

Since there is no rhyme scheme or syllable count, there’s no point in a schematic, but the pattern of word-repetition is as follows, where the words that end the lines of the first sestet are represented by the numbers "1 2 3 4 5 6":

1 2 3 4 5 6 - End words of lines in first sestet.
6 1 5 2 4 3 - End words of lines in second sestet.
3 6 4 1 2 5 - End words of lines in third sestet.
5 3 2 6 1 4 - End words of lines in fourth sestet.
4 5 1 3 6 2 - End words of lines in fifth sestet.
2 4 6 5 3 1 - End words of lines in sixth sestet.
2 end words - Middle and end words of lines in envoi

Possible formats for the envoi are: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6; 1-4, 2-5, 3-6; 6-2, 1-4, 5-3; or 6-5, 2-4, 3-1

It might be easier to follow along with an example. The six words I used were:

1 truth, 2 grave, 3 life, 4 night, 5 death, 6 stone.


Night Dweller’s Truth

In every breath there is a truth
that overshadows every grave,
a truth not found within a life
that shines its beacon into night,
a knowledge brought about by death
and graven into hardest stone.

A thought that’s carved in precious stone
contains what we perceive as truth,
unsuppressed by certain death,
as cold and alien as the grave,
deep and dark as empty night
just before it bursts to life.

If I’d but know how sweet is life,
not just a pathway strewn with stone,
perhaps I’d not embraced the night
that fills me with its awful truth
and takes me far beyond the grave
out of reach of even death.

And what is that which we call death?
Perhaps another way of life,
the end is more than just the grave,
a fresh turned mound that’s capped with stone.
Perhaps we’ll never know the truth
before we pass into the night.

Come and share this sweetest night
where we can stand abreast of death,
and we will seek the perfect truth
of what is that which we call life
that gathers round us like a stone
and leads us blindly to the grave.

You look at me with visage grave -
accept my words, accept the night,
accept that fate’s not carved in stone.
Turn away from Lady Death,
her promise of the after life,
and know what’s in my heart is truth.

We’ll find our truth without the grave
and make our life within the night,
then vanquish death with shattered stone.