Hello Readers,
You know how it is when you focus on something like maybe your sister gets pregnant and suddenly you see so many pregnant women around you? Or when you decide to buy a new red Subaru and find a couple “cousins” in your own neighborhood? Well, that’s how it’s been with the sestina for me this month. I read a sestina in submissions, then wrote one, challenged a friend to write one, then found a few very artfully written in my latest book order, Ghost Man on Second by Erica Reid (Bravo to Erica!) Sestinas abound!
The sestina is a French form that accommodates many styles, topics, and a diversity of voices. Easy to google (Poetry Foundation or Academy of American Poets, for starters) but not so easy to write. You need six durable words, whether you select them first or find them as you go, to carry you through six 6-line stanzas and the 3-line envoi. These words are used at the end of each line and in a prescribed order per stanza (after you manage the first). The lines can be the length of your choosing but should be close to the same throughout. Easy-peasy, right? You could give it a try.
Meanwhile, I am confounded at the power of form to trick the mind into creating a fine poem. A little distraction, a little constraint, and pow! –you have unleashed something hidden and made it manifest! My inner editor is telling me to stop with the exclamation points but Spring is in the offing (see Neal Ostman’s “Sprang!”) which is an explosion of a kind. Consistent with emphatic punctuation, don’t you think?
Spring >Explosions >Play: Let’s play Cento and see where it takes us using the titles from this issue of Willawaw:
The Raining was a Rash on Spring
Morning in Melancholia
Graveyard Shift
When the Dead Visit
Underground Gardens
Dreaming of Eucalyptus
The Canoe
The Anchovy of Melancholy
Link
France, 1990
Where the Train Tracks Meet the Sun
Just One More
Portrait of Emily
Lost
Bowing to No God: Family Liturgy
Return to the Chatooga River
Iowa Scenes
La Spezia
Desert Tableau, Fort Rock, Oregon
Bridge Over 15 Mile Creek
The Cinderblock Duplex in the 60’s
The Front Porch Sitters
Rapping Richmond Village
She Watches
The Lost Boys
Daughter, Minnows and the Woman
Li Bai on his way to Meng Haoran’s Grave
If This was a Gateway to Heaven
I can’t unknow any knowing of a death grip
Unstitched, Life Cycle
The Dazzle of Fireflies on a Sticky Jersey Night
Last Night It Started Raining
Change in the Weather
Through the Morning
Atmospheric River
Northwest’s Mind of Winter
Hells Canyon Revival
I Told the Rain
Beau Soir
The Old Carpenter Does Happy Hour
Hunnered
Baby Demerol Gets Set Adrift
It’s Come to This with Every Breath
How to Get to the Sky
Their Fair Share
Shared Bounty
Audit of my Bee Heart
Sunday Afternoon, Early September
Let Me Count the Ways
The World is Lost to Me
Paper
Smoke Signals
Interstices
Woods Walking
Final Cut of the Season, Eulogy
OK, that’s your preview of the issue. All the authors are listed in the table of contents at the top of each page. You can make it your quest to match them to their title. My thanks to the very many contributors who grace the pages of our 18th issue, with a shout-out to J.I. Kleinberg for her minimalist found poetry, tickling an idea, and egging us on. Oh, the many faces of poetry, diverse in style, form, and voice. Enjoy your reading and happy Spring Equinox!
Yours in poetry,
Rachel Barton
