Humility (Sestina)

[milktea]

My first sestina. I tried to write in strict iambic pentameter, but I'm not sure if my iambs would pass scansion.

http://www.inkboard.net/misc/share/humility.txt

[J.D. Sparks]

Wow. I am severely impressed. Sestinas are incredibly difficult and this was BEAUTIFUL. I was going to try to pay attention to iambs, but the poem just swept me along. Even if you notice iambic inconsistencies, I hope that you won't alter this poem just to fit them!

[hillwalker]

I'll admit I had to read up on the strict form a sestina takes, and having done so salute you even for attempting to write in such a complex rhyme system.
Having read this wonderful poem it is even more to your credit that you make it flow so smoothly and expand upon the imagery so subtly - the repetitive rhyme in no way dominating the piece.
A brilliant tour de force.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I was tempted to look for a thread you'd begun, because of your intelligent response to "My first poem" and lo and behold you're at least as good as that response suggested - and even better (to borrow one of your end rhymes).

Welcome to the forum. Post, post, post again!

[MorpheusSandman]

This is an extraordinary accomplishment. I love sestinas and have tried to write a few but always become frustrated and end up abandoning them. The hardest thing is making the repeated words disappear into the flow of the poem and giving them a slightly different "sense" each time. You do that remarkably well here, and have crafted an amazing poem IN SPITE of the form in the process. Even though the piece is almost never in perfect iambic pentameter I don't think the piece is ever rhythmically rough or jagged. The meter reads more like free-beat pentameter, similar to the free-beat hexameter that Richmond Lattimore adopted for his Homer translations.


I'll admit I had to read up on the strict form a sestina takes, and having done so salute you even for attempting to write in such a complex rhyme system.The form is infinitely more easy to explain than to write. Sestinas consist of six, six-line stanzas and a concluding tercet. The end words shift in each stanza in this order: 123456, 615243, 364125, 532614, 451362, and the final tercet combines two of the words for each line.

[Buh4Bee]

Well, well, done! Humility is the perfect title for this poem. Just stunning.

Some of the posters on this forum are junkies for form and meter, so you are a very welcome contributor!!

[hack]

This is beautiful.
I am not one to
judge it on its
technical details,
but I know that
I like it very much.

[milktea]

For starters, I have got to say you guys are uber-generous with your feedback; talk about a warm welcome!

I'm totally receptive to hearing and hoping to discover what doesn't work in this poem. I'd like to workshop Humility in this forum because I respect the opinions here.

@JD Sparks, No worries, if I can't improve the poem with changes, then I won't make them. That said, I would like to learn to work within the full constraints of a sestina, it might require several more attempts.

@hillwalker, tour de force? brilliant? Do they bottle you? Package you? If so tell me where because I want five. Heck, I want stock! Thank you very much.

@PrinceMyshkin, I was a bit overwhelmed by all of the comments on your Snapshots so I haven't posted on that thread. I appreciate the economy of words (can you tell I'm a Pound-junkie?) And yes, at a glance your snapshots do leave a strong impression. I like reading poetry that makes me feel first and consider afterwards, so I look forward to reading more. I guess this isn't really related to your response, but...

@MorpheusSandman,
I love sestinas and have tried to write a few but always become frustrated and end up abandoning them.

You are talking to someone who has done the same thing for over two years. I consider this sestina to be a two and a half year work in progress. Man, you wouldn't believe how many one stanza 'Nantuckets' I produced before I wrote this. I could probably publish a book on how not to start a sestina x___x;;

About the meter. Good point. I never formally studied scansion and I live in a land where the rhythm of language is entirely different, so I'm having a monstrous time getting my ears to attune to iambs. Do you have any poetry recommendations or any practical suggestions for me to familiarize myself with this metrical foot?

BTW: I changed the post to a text link because this site is regularly indexed by search engines and I'd like to decide for myself who I'll share my unpolished writing with ^_^;; The link is to a server which has a robots.txt file that prevents bots from indexing. I hope you guys don't mind the extra click.

@jersea, (just saw your comment as I was checking this post) thank you!

[MorpheusSandman]

Thanks for the response, milktea. If I ever get around to completing (or, hell, even working on) my patchwork epic I'm determined to include a sestina somewhere, and probably a lengthy palindrome and classic Greek Ode too. I've never really studied scansion either. Like I said elsewhere I think poetic meter and rhythm is something I've always just intuitively "got". As for poetry recs in iambic pentameter, a ton of classic English poetry is written primarily in the meter: Shakespeare (especially his sonnets), Milton, Donne, etc. One thing to keep in mind - and I've said this elsewhere - that most of the great poets don't simply write in straight iambic pentameter but vary the beats and rhythm for effect, and you have common elements such as the first-foot inversion (trochee/iamb combo) to consider. One book you might want to check out that I've seen referenced is called English Stress. (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Morris+Halle+Keyser+&x=0&y=0)

[lallison]

I've never even heard of a Sestina before or can remember reading one so I can't give you much feedback about the form, but i can say that i enjoyed reading yours. I found it quite eloquent and I think it is terrific of you to take it on. Now I will have to look up some more of these to read and get a better idea of what they're all about. Thanks for the introduction and for sharing your poem.

[milktea]

Thanks for the response, milktea. If I ever get around to completing (or, hell, even working on) my patchwork epic I'm determined to include a sestina somewhere, and probably a lengthy palindrome and classic Greek Ode too. I've never really studied scansion either. Like I said elsewhere I think poetic meter and rhythm is something I've always just intuitively "got". As for poetry recs in iambic pentameter, a ton of classic English poetry is written primarily in the meter: Shakespeare (especially his sonnets), Milton, Donne, etc. One thing to keep in mind - and I've said this elsewhere - that most of the great poets don't simply write in straight iambic pentameter but vary the beats and rhythm for effect, and you have common elements such as the first-foot inversion (trochee/iamb combo) to consider. One book you might want to check out that I've seen referenced is called English Stress. (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Morris+Halle+Keyser+&x=0&y=0)

Thank you very much for the for the link. Have you read any of the book's content? I copied the ISBN and will try ordering it from amazon Japan, but before I do can you tell me a little about the book? There were no reviews and it seems to be already out of print despite being published not too long ago... makes me a bit curious.

I've got Shakespeare's complete poetry collection sitting across from me as I type! Even though I'm not a big fan of his, I'll definitely give his sonnets a read out loud these next few weeks. Thank you for the recommendation.

And to the others who have commented on this poem since my last post. Thank you very much. I'd be really keen on hearing what could be improved. This is a first draft after all and I'm certain there's a lot of room for improvement. Thanks!

[Cunninglinguist]

Kudos :biggrin5::biggrin5::biggrin5::biggrin5::biggrin5: :biggrin5:

[blank|verse]

Just briefly, I think this is a remarkable achievement, milktea (and two sugars, please) and I'm not a fan of sestinas, if I'm being honest!

But that takes nothing away from this poem, which I think deserves more scrutiny than I can currently give it, so I'll get back to you soon with more detailed comments.

[MorpheusSandman]

before I do can you tell me a little about the book? Unfortunately I can't but I've read it referenced in a couple of places (one, I think, was Wikipedia's poetry page) as being a good guide for information about English meter. If you'd like I'd consider buying it first and letting you know since I've been interested in reading it anyway. In the meantime, I hunted up THIS (http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~dresher/papers/ICHL03.pdf) article which references the book, and you can view the Wikipedia page on it HERE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iambic_pentameter) near the bottom of the "variation" section.

[Jerrybaldy]

I have never been aware of sestinas (one of my low brow ommisions) but I can see the clever word play involved and congratulate you on sticking it out and producing such a great result.
J

[milktea]

Just briefly, I think this is a remarkable achievement, milktea (and two sugars, please) and I'm not a fan of sestinas, if I'm being honest!

But that takes nothing away from this poem, which I think deserves more scrutiny than I can currently give it, so I'll get back to you soon with more detailed comments.

I sincerely hope you will. I've read your feedback on other threads and was rather envious of the other poets as I felt you were spot on in all of your critiques. My friend, who was unaware of what a sestina was, evaluated the poem for the content and not the construct. Her feedback was extremely helpful and I've already started revising. I thought to myself if anyone were to do as my friend I bet it would be blank|verse... but didn't expect you to read this considering your handle ^_^;;

[blank|verse]

This is a remarkable achievement, milktea; I am in admiration of the skill that has gone into crafting this.

I'm no expert on sestinas but I read (and tend to agree) that one should try to avoid rhyming words. I think your choice of the para-rhymed 'better' and 'bitter' becomes something of a distraction – particularly between stanzas 3 and 4, where there is the 'better – better – bitter' run of end-rhymes.

In fact, your choices fall into two groups of half-rhymes: the assonantal, strong-stressed 'cup – sun – flush'; and the consonantal, weak-stressed 'bitter – better – water'. Was this intentional? Interestingly, Elizabeth Bishop also used 'sun' with 'crumb' as end-words in her sestina 'A Miracle for Breakfast'. Marianne Moore considered this a fault of the poem, and Bishop agreed. And who am I to disagree with them?

The poetic consensus seems to be that one should use either words that don't draw attention to themselves, or words that obviously do. Perhaps yours fall somewhere between the two?!

And even though you have weak-stressed words, you use them in 10-syllable lines, where usually the final unstressed syllable would count as the 11th in the line: perhaps this is something to look at if you're bothered by the iambic flow of the poem.

Over-looking the fact that the narrator makes humility seem a bad thing, I sucked my teeth at this line:

else they be privy to what makes me flush.
its reliance on archaisms is a weakness (and reading it makes me think I'm suddenly wearing a Jacobean ruff and a pair of actor's tights!).

I think this next line sounds archaic as well, coming straight after:

I once was young
although I see you're repeating this refrain at the end of the stanza. Maybe both could be changed by moving 'once' to the start of each sentence.

and cares did flow as time flowed like water
past, through, and within all things;
Careful with stacking your similes here. And there are shades of Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey': 'A motion and a spirit, that impels | All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts, | And rolls through all things' (lines 101-103); but that's no bad thing for me.

Blush faded and barren, the fated cup
I suffer for foolish pride.
Syntax odd here.

Maybe these are some things to consider if you're going to continue working on it, but overall I think the strengths of the poem and the achievement of its completion outweigh any smaller issues. Fantastic stuff, milktea.

[MorpheusSandman]

One thing milktea should know is that me and B|V are often at odds over our poetic, aesthetic tastes. Sometimes I read comments like "one should try to avoid rhyming words" and "one should use words that don't draw attention to themselves" with bemusement. One of the great mistakes of man is always equating contemporary thought with some kind of universal truth.


The poetic consensusIs this anything like the national consensus? Where can one access the results?

[blank|verse]

Where can one access the results?
In books.

And it's also a mistake to dismiss contemporary thought, particularly when its not aspiring to 'truth' but merely showing examples from previous poems written by professional writers (something your reply was rather short of). And your quoting was rather selective; my comments are just helpful suggestions that are meant as considerations for the poet.

[MorpheusSandman]

My question was more or less a rhetorical one. Obviously you can read all kinds of theories in all kinds of books about all kinds of subjects, but "consensus" makes it sound rather clinical. I'm not "dismissing contemporary thought" as much as I'm labeling at "contemporary thought" and nothing more. It's a thought that's no more or less valid than non-contemporary thought which advocates the very things contemporary thought rejects. I'm not the type to subscribe to limiting aesthetic principles. It's infinitely better to embrace them all, including those that are polar and contradictory, and learn how to utilize them all when need-be. The person who doesn't automatically limits themselves. Of course, perhaps this doesn't apply to hedgehogs who merely want to master one thing. But basing what they master on contemporary thought seems really arbitrary to me. It would be much better to base it on their own thought and taste and then it would be best to base that either on a diverse knowledge of thought or complete ignorance of all thought. As the wise saying goes, there's fewer things more dangerous than just a little bit of knowledge.

[qimissung]

Your first sestina? This was a very good effort. I don't think there's much you need to change. It's bittersweet, and you've managed it in a very sophisticated style. Well done!

[milktea]

Thank you blank|verse, MorpheusSandman, and qimissung. I really appreciated reading your comments.

@blank|verse
My half-rhymes were intentional. I broke them into two groups in an attempt to balance the assonance and consonance. My favorite sestina, Daniel's "Lo ferm voler qu'el cor m'intra" ends in perfect rhyme, and I primarily used his work as a model for my sestina. I'll keep your comments concerning in mind though for future attempts (although I'd still like to write a sestina with a tongue-in-cheek theme in perfect rhyme).

Thank you very much for pointing out which parts sounded archaic and for the tips on fixing them; this is very useful feedback.


Maybe these are some things to consider if you're going to continue working on it...

Most definitely. Thank you.


One thing milktea should know is that me and B|V are often at odds over our poetic, aesthetic tastes. Sometimes I read comments like "one should try to avoid rhyming words" and "one should use words that don't draw attention to themselves" with bemusement. One of the great mistakes of man is always equating contemporary thought with some kind of universal truth.

Wonderful! I welcome different opinions like yours ^_^