Formal Attire

Exercise Your InkTank

Today we’re going to try on some formal constraints. That’s right. We’re getting conventional up in here. Maybe you’ve written some formal poetry before, a few pantoums or a villanelle, perhaps. Maybe you’ve written poems before but nothing formal because formal poetry is stale and frusty and/or absolutely terrifying. Or maybe you’ve never written a poem before at all. No matter your disposition or level of experience, the truth (and it’s not one I’m making up this time) is that formal constraints are a good way to free yourself from habit and to invite real invention into your writing space. You may find a new turn of phrase or a new image, a new story or a new voice, or you may simply find that a new form reminds you of what you valued in more familiar forms. At a minimun, you’ll leave today having written a sestina with your fellow Salonists.

The Suit
A sestina. Let’s talk about what that is first: It’s a poem consisting of six six-line stanzas and one three-line envoy. The end-words (we’ll generate these together) in each stanza are the same, but they follow different sequences. Here’s the pattern the sestina follows:

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.
(6 2) (1 4) (5 3) - Middle and end words of lines in tercet.

The Tailors
Who comes up with this stuff? In this case, the French. The sestina appeared in France in the twelfth century, initially in the work of a troubadour. Why are we here at InkTank writing a sestina? Because the sestina is one of the best poetic forms for storytelling. Its repetition and long line-length make it an ideal form for our purposes. What are our purposes? We’re all about storytelling here, no matter the genre. Why do we keep using forms the French developed? It is merely a coincidence, I assure you.