Overview
"...you engage in form, you don't choose it. It isn't an arrow in your quiver; it's an arrow in you, and it quivers; it's a kind of love." — James Cummins
The idea of sitting down to write a poem in a certain form gathers scorn from some writers: it makes the act more trivial, more of a game. "Serious poetry" should come from within and assume the form that suits it the best. We know, however, that young writers often don't have this inner force that writes their poetry. When directed to write a poem, they sit and stare at the blank page with no idea where to start. Do I rhyme? When do I go to a new line? What should I write about?
Writing in a particular form gives students a starting point: because there are some rules, they are freed from the oblivion that is a blank sheet of paper. They can engage with a form and allow it to guide them toward creating something beautiful. More importantly, writing in a form – writing poetry at all, really – allows students to become better at reading it. Instead of looking at the poem as a puzzle or a code, they will see it as something that has been created to inform and entertain. Or even just delight.
The first sestina I encountered was "Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape" by John Ashbery. I read it and had that feeling – one that language nerds like myself feel often and that we, as teachers, hope our students will feel even once – of excitement about a piece of writing. Something magical was happening and I wanted to read it again, read it to others, live in it, create it myself. The poem begins:
The first of the undecoded messages read: "Popeye sits in thunder, Unthought of. From that shoebox apartment, From livid curtain's hue, a tangram emerges: a country." Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: "How pleasant, To spend one's vacation en la casa de Popeye," she scratched Her cleft chin's solitary hair. She remembered spinach… 1
The language grabbed me immediately. I didn't know what a tangram was (a Chinese puzzle), but I liked that it sat next to Spanish and spinach, chin hairs and shoebox apartments. There was also something intriguing about the way the narrative – even in its first two sentences, allows us to peek behind a curtain. We get to see another side of Popeye and his crew. He sits in thunder? The Sea Hag casually mentions hanging out at her archenemy Popeye's casa? It was like a behind-the-scenes reality show. I didn't want to look away. Then, the next stanza unfolded, introducing the beginning of the sestina's pattern:
…And was going to ask Wimpy if he bought any spinach.
"M'love," he intercepted, "the plains are decked out in thunder
And it shall be how you wish." He scratched
The part of his head under his hat. The apartment
Seemed to grow smaller. "But what if no pleasant
Inspiration plunge us now to the stars? For this is my country."
Being unfamiliar with the sestina's form on my first read, I couldn't pinpoint the pattern that was emerging, but I felt it – the poem seemed to circle around itself, but it still changed. The repeated words weren't used in exactly the same way, but shifted almost imperceptibly as the narrative moved forward. Rather than slap the reader in the face with structure, the rules of the sestina instead seemed to nudge.
This unit focuses on the sestina because of its seemingly intricate, but actually simple rules. Students will analyze the way the form's structure allows content to come alive in a different way than it might have in a sonnet, a free verse poem, or in prose. The way that form supports and even manipulates content will lay the basis for the higher-level analysis these students will encounter in later English classes. Ultimately, I hope they will learn that the poem isn't something to fear — it is something to play with, to engage with, that can open doors to the exploration of language and self. Poetry can be something they (not just their English teachers) can feel excited by.
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