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With Difficulty

With Difficulty. Creative Writing I. The Sestina.

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With Difficulty

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  1. With Difficulty Creative Writing I

  2. The Sestina The inventor, Arnaut Daniel, was part of a group of 12th century poets – the troubadours – who needed to shock, delight and entertain in order to make their living at court. It is a game of meaning played with sounds and sense while using common speech.

  3. Sestina Example SESTINA (DERAILED) BY ROBERT C. MOONEY The minister’s wife, it was whispered, was near death, and those children farmed out to close friends. The marks on her throat made them shudder to think of the wire pulling taut, Patty gasping for air, and poor Walter mere minutes from home. Pat, are you there? Pick up. I’ll be home in an hour, Walter said. Then he whispered, I’m sorry, and rolled down the window for air. He pulled into the driveway, got out, shook his head, shook his keys, touched the wire in his pocket, cleared the lump in his throat. She screamed, surely she screamed as her throat was crushed behind locked doors, safely at home. Walter fell on the steps. Cut his hand, he said. Bruised his face, he said. Whispered his thanks that the children were out. He was shaking and gasping for air. Then a medic yelled, Bring me an air tank! and pushed a tube down Pat’s throat. She’s alive! he yelled. Walter passed out. Check his pockets for keys so the home can be locked. Where am I? he whispered. Why is that policeman so close at hand? Protection. Now give me your hand, said the nurse, and she scrubbed and the air filled with screams. She bent down and whispered, If you think this is bad, your wife’s throat was collapsed. She will never go home. In a coma. She’ll never get out. In a courtroom a medic spelled out how the wire ended up in his hand. Searching for keys to lock up the home, ‘cause we’d done all we could with the air, in his pocket was blood from her throat and the wire. I’m fucked, Walter whispered. Close to passed out, Walter gasped for air as contraband wire encircled his throat. Your ass is my home, the man whispered.

  4. Sestina’s Rules • A poem of 39 lines • It has 6 stanzas of 6 lines each, and one (envoi) with three lines • All lines are unrhymed • The same 6 words end the lines of each stanza, following a lexical repetition:

  5. Your Sestina: On A Theme • Come up with a theme for your poem (a topic) • Create a list of words which relate to the topic grouped by word type (noun, verb, adjective, adverb) • Choose 6 words to be your base from the different lists • Create a narrative sestina which focuses on the theme selected using the words chosen

  6. The Pantoum Came by way of the French from the Malayans. It is unusual for a strict form as is had no defined length, but rather a prescription for repetition of lines.

  7. Pantoum Example Details By Judith Baumel After a particular understanding, peculiar knowledge – The weaver knows each strip of warp; A comfort of touch. Fingertips Slaying, drawing-in the thread The weaver knows each stripe of warp, Its path and place in the fabric. Slaying, drawing-in the thread, Each thin piece evolves specific, separate. Its path and place in the fabric Join with others to form the whole Each thin piece evolves specific, separate, Something calm and repetitive, Joins with others to form the whole As the cook making prune jam – Something calm and repetitive – Repeats each task with regular skill. As the cook making prune jam Pits and skins the fruit, Repeats each task with regular skill, Warm boiled fruit slips through hands. Pits and skins. The fruit: Each reward of familiar flesh. Warm boiled fruit slips through hands And fingers remember Each reward of familiar flesh For lovers in a darkened, quiet bed. And fingers remember How the body’s map of texture changes. For lovers in a darkened, quiet bed Each velvet hair on the low curve of back, How the body’s map of texture changes To find, perhaps, the zipper of a scar. Each velvet hair on the low curve of back; A comfort of touch, through fingertips Find, perhaps, the zipper of a scar, In particular understanding, peculiar knowledge.

  8. Pantoum’s Rules • Each stanza is four lines long • The length is unspecified, but it begins and ends with the same line. • All lines are usually unrhymed (ababif they do) • The final stanza includes the unrepeated first and third lines.

  9. Pantoum Tips for Success!!! • Think about repeating lines in terms of caesura and enjambment • When a line ends mid-sentence, the natural pause is lessened and the feel of repetition can be minimized • Changes to punctuation can change the pace of a line and shift the sense of repeated passages • If you MUST make changes – do so in plurality and/or verb tense

  10. Your Pantoum: On An Action • Think of an activity that must follow steps (like weaving in the example poem) • What insights about humanity can be drawn from this activity through connection or comparison (building friendships?) • What other activity ties to that insight? • Create a pantoum wherein you show the insight moving from one activity’s stages to another’s

  11. The Villanelle From the Italian harvest season, it is believed that the first incantations of this form recounted the aspects of farming as a round song. However, Jean Passerat popularized the form in 16th century France

  12. Villanelle Examples Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  13. Villanelle’s Rules • The poem has nineteen lines • There are 5 stanzas of 3 lines, the last has 4 • The rhyme scheme is ABAexcept the last, which is ABAA

  14. Villanelle’s Rules Continued • The first line repeats in second, fourth and final stanza • The third line repeats in third, fifth and final stanza

  15. Your Villanelle: Advice • Create a couplet that embodies a piece of advice for one person or people as a whole • Where/how does the advice apply • Write your villanelle with the goal of convincing your subject(s) to take your advice

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