I should probably apologize early on in this post for my regular readers: this is likely TMI for non-poets, a peeking-under-the-structural-hood moment, as I try to explain what I am about in creating the “fingertrap” sestina. But I think that if I reason through this with you all with a new poem in process, this may become more clear for everyone. 

As I said in the previous post [link] which introduced the motivation for creating a new form, the function of the traditional sestina appealed to me in its tensions and harmony, its closed, looping obsessiveness, its paralysis and perfection. 

But I also thought that I could double down on these attributes by introducing a dialogic component; that is, a second speaker who is simultaneously discussing a related topic next to the first and where the two share the closing envoi. This way, readers may read either poem singly, but are also invited to the (clearly related) interplay between the parallel poems. If done well, we learn even more about each speaker through this juxtaposition than if we had either alone. Think of it this way:

Tightening the Connections

After considering this, I felt that the mere juxtaposition of two poems side by side–while powerful–might be better integrated, so of course I had to consider the 6-word looping of the sestina. Should I simply have them use the same 6 words? Of course this is an option, so that readers can see how each speaker might use them differently. And here I invoke my aesthetic preference: it felt clumsy and obvious. Both are sestinas, they already mirror each other: what use for additional mirroring?

For instance, in the first stanza of a winter sestina, I might have the words “Whirling, cold, white, crisp, dreary, draft” as choices to repeat in the stanzas. Should both poems in the first stanza each end their lines this way?

1      Whirling      Whirling
2      Cold           Cold
3      White         White
4      Crisp          Crisp
5      Dreary       Dreary
6      Draft          Draft

Certainly two different sets of words was also possible, but then this felt too divorcing. The answer had to itself be an intermingling of either extreme. More, when considered that way, the choices of the words which cross over becomes more significant. In other words, if the words were to differ, there still should be a relationship between them, and that relationship itself might be telling. In other words, it’s not merely the content of the words which creates meaning, but how they relate to each other. 

A set of pairings is what I needed to create, perhaps oppositional. And it’s important to note here that by “oppositional” I do not mean that the relationship is opposite or antonym. It could be, but by “oppositional” I suggest that they sit opposite to each other, but the kind of relationship remains open to inquiry. 

1      Whirling        Still
2      Cold             Thaw
3      White           Dark
4      Crisp            Dull
5      Dreary         Clear
6      Draft            Close

Now many of these might be considered a kind of antonym, but not a typical or exact one. “White / Dark” are not opposites, but they may appear so if one is treated as a metaphor for the other. “Dreary / Clear” are opposites only if we are, perhaps, referring to the weather, though one is more accurately a mood than a condition. “Cold / Thaw” are not opposites, but they are perhaps chronologically related in terms of heat. What I’m doing is offering links between my pairs which are seeming but inexact opposites, where often one may proceed to another, change or alter the condition of the other.* 

I’ll mention, too, as I work with these as hypothetical choices (the poem is not yet written as I compose this description), that I am also selecting words for which I might make creative use, that have more than one part of speech and more than one meaning. This is a typical move of the sestina writer, not to be locked in with specific nouns, for instance (and of course, I immediately think of a contrary example in Elizabeth Bishop’s excellent “Sestina” which uses “house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac, tears”). Nevertheless. . . 

You’re more than entitled to ask, of course, why I want this relationship between the words. Correct: this is not a random choice but, I think, a significant one. What we have not discussed are my two speakers, which is really the place where we must begin with in imagining our new poetic form. 

“To put this more bluntly, the relationship is a closed loop, a static devotion to a singular conception (the sestina); here, though, one speaker’s loop tightens the other’s (the “fingertrap” sestina).“

Speakers

For me, poem always actually begins here and, depending upon what the poet wishes to say or explore, the form and its rules follow. I have only put off this point because we are working through the rules of structure, and there are more of these below.

But for my winter poem, I certainly could write two parallel winter sestinas with a variety of speakers. The words chosen so far are not so unusual that most speakers could not accomplish a poem. The kind of relationship that I have chosen for my oppositional terms, however, begins to channel or funnel my options. Perhaps I could write two wintry sestinas from a single speaker who is working through an issue and has moved from one position to another. Or I could write two from a position of someone in delight and another who is suffering. This particular idea, however, does not seem to me to entirely fit the shifting relationships I have chosen. 

In this case, I have already settled on my direction/tone/topic for the poem, two friends who are distanced or estranged. What each sees in this “winter” of their relationship will be different, but dependent upon the other’s view. In other words, the more one speaker believes what he does, the more the other speaker might restrict his own views. To put this more bluntly, the relationship is a closed loop, a static devotion to a singular conception (the sestina); here, though, one speaker’s loop tightens the other’s (the “fingertrap” sestina). Is there room for them to escape and restore their relationship? Perhaps in the movement/relationship of the pairs.

And Back to Form

The traditional sestina employs a mathematical relationship in the ordering of its stanzas. We could spend a fair amount of time offering explanations for this set of relationships which has varied a bit across the centuries. I remember it this way: the first stanza is always (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Then we always begin the next stanza with the same end word as the previous one. After that choice, we proceed on the order of the previous stanza: last and first, then second-from-last and second, then third-from-last and third. The result looks like this:

Stanza 1:      1 2 3 4 5 6
Stanza 2:      6 1 5 2 4 3
Stanza 3:      3 6 4 1 2 5
Stanza 4:      5 3 2 6 1 4
Stanza 5:      4 5 1 3 6 2
Stanza 6:      2 4 6 5 3 1
Envoi:           25,  34,  61

I will say that some will argue that the final envoi’s inclusion of all 6 words in the three-line stanza is now varied frequently in practice; the order of the words, their placement, the inclusion of the envoi at all, etc. I will keep it to bring our speakers together, to tie them tightly, despite the oppositional spaces they occupy earlier.

What is left, however, are my rules for that tightening. If the traditional sestina stanzas look like this and I am now left with a pairs of six, how will I link them?  

The Fingertrap 

First, I love the repetition of the last end word from one stanza as the first end word of the next. There is a beautiful echo in that which I will retain. Second, I have decided to use each of the words in equal measure (if possible) across the two poems. In other words, a reader will not see the traditional repetition of six words unless they read both poems (and then they’ll see two repetitions of six between them). The effect for readers is a more subtle looping, but enough of an echo that each speaker should feel like an equal echo of the other. This, to my mind, might better emphasize the pairs and shift the reader to examine the reasoning between them. For the reader, then, pulling on (reading/interpreting/playing with) one poem must draw the other one in; thus the knot between them is tightened.

If I assigned the first term of the pair as “a,” and the second term of the pair as “b,” the form of the first poem might look like this:

This retains the traditional repetition pattern while trading out half the words with the second poem which will have the same repetition pattern but trade the first and second words of each pair. (Stanza 2 of the second poem will be 6b, 1a, 5b, 2a, 4a, 3a.)

With our wintry words, stanza 2 might read this way:

Pairs:

1   Whirling      Still
2   Cold           Thaw
3   White         Dark
4   Crisp          Dull
5   Dreary       Clear
6   Draft          Close

More than twice I’ve sat down to draft
A morning email, even a text, but still,
Even this much effort seems dreary;
I watch tonight’s meat thaw
Wetly on the counter, and a dull
Ache comes with the early dark.

I draw the scarf tight, close
and step out into icy bits, a whirling
sparkle of sun and bite in the clear
January. I blow air. Crystals and cold
snap at my cheeks, hat, your crisp
image, fragile, growing thinly white

Of course, the effect of the repetition/looping will become more pronounced as we read successive stanzas.

Overall Effect

Now, the “fingertrap” sestina has new qualities:

• • It retains all of the traditional sestina’s perfect looping tensions (though more subtly) and therefore its obsessive, closed qualities.
  • It offers two speakers who discuss the same issue from differing perspectives; so while each speaker now suffers the conditions of the sestina form, they additionally are placed in relational juxtaposition to one another, therefore compelling us to see two perhaps equally limited (ironic) perspectives.
  • By sharing an envoi and the 12 repeated words, their mutual dependence upon one another is emphasized; or at least, their shared understanding and circumstances, despite the other factors at work.
  • The relationships between the pairs becomes a new factor for examination, opening the relationship between the speakers to additional inquiry.

As it turns out, these are not altogether technically more difficult to write than a regular sestina (other than the movement to a matched envoi). The trouble really is in laying the nuance and complexity of the relationships between the speakers, an enormous consideration since this is the central conceitIn literature, allowing a metaphor or unexpected comparison ... More of the form. 

To help myself, I have drawn up short character sketches/summaries of my two speakers, even considered the backstory for them a bit (something which will never reveal itself in the final poem). Mostly, though, I have contrasted their place and their approaches to dealing with the relationship: one isolated and determined to inadequate resolution, the other in more denial, plunging into a reinvigorating outdoors. Already in stanza 2 we can see metaphors for the relationship developing.

In the final part of this examination, I’ll write about the finished version of my wintry verse and what I accomplished or failed to.