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Need some help? Here's a cheat-sheet for creating sestina poetryONLINE EXTRA
Published: May 2, 2008 Contributing editor Marilyn Taylor explores the structure and challenge of the sestina form of poetry in the June 2008 issue of The Writer. Here, she offers a "cheat-sheet" to help you get started.
SESTINA CHEAT-SHEET
For a simple short cut to writing a sestina (admittedly contrived), try doing it this way, without telling a soul:
1. Write your first stanza, choosing your repetends (end-words) carefully.
2. Take all six of your repetends and put them in a column down the left-hand side of the page, stanza by stanza, in the correct order.
3. Fill in the blanks with the poem!
Example:
Stanza 1:
Would anybody like to go for coffee?
I'm heading for the best café in town
Where all the coffee drinks are hot and mellow
and every Tuesday evening someone sings
and plays the mandolin, or the guitar
until the music fills the empty spaces.
Stanza 2:
_____________________________ spaces
_____________________________ coffee
_____________________________ guitar
_____________________________ town
_____________________________ sings
_____________________________ mellow
Stanza 3:
_____________________________ mellow
_____________________________ spaces
_____________________________ sings
_____________________________ coffee
_____________________________ town
_____________________________ guitar
Stanza 4
_____________________________ guitar
_____________________________ mellow
_____________________________ town
_____________________________ spaces
_____________________________ coffee
_____________________________ sings
Stanza 5:
_____________________________ sings
_____________________________ guitar
_____________________________ coffee
_____________________________ mellow
_____________________________ spaces
_____________________________ town
Stanza 6:
_____________________________ town
_____________________________ sings
_____________________________ spaces
_____________________________ guitar
_____________________________ mellow
_____________________________ coffee
Envoy:
_____________ town ___________ guitar
_____________ sings ___________ mellow
_____________ spaces __________ coffee
--Posted May 1, 2008
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