11-22-2021, 05:59 AM
Hi RiverNotch,
First off I need to make a disclaimer: I’m no formalist so what follows may be of little or no relevance. But I am somewhat familiar with the sestina as a poetic form or at least I was once.
Re: The title of the piece, I’m left asking the question whether or not you really need to entitle this poem according to it’s literary form. I mean its format is relatively clear: 6 stanzas of six lines each accompanied by a tercet. That including the repetition of the end word (retrogradatio cruciata) kinda sinks it, (although the pair of lines in each of the strophes do not add to 7). Furthermore, the poem is not penned in iambic pentameter S1L2 by my count only has 9 syllables. I guess you are writing a more modern less formulaic version of the sestina.
Some in-line notes follow:
Sestina
March, sum// mer for //suckers//, fills the //café//… 1
with those //who dress// in vin//tage, ra//tion. ….2……………Only 9 syllables by my count.
like it's wartime, and silently scream … 3
into their phones, "This world's a stove. …4
run out of gas! Who can raise a child. …5
in this climate?" All while the old hyena…. 6
laughs, skulking for food. Here in Addis Ababa, hyenas…..6 ……Addis Abba- I guess that we are in Ethiopia or is it Eretria.
fill the streets at night, scavenge the cafés. …1
and hospitals for left-behind children ….5
like beggars for scraps of himbasha. "Wasted rations”,… 2
thinks the beggar tending an old stove, …. 4
"all a mother's labor, all her screams. …3 ….The lexical repetition holds in S2 but not in the rest of the strophes.
dissolved by stomach acid." Every night, the screams. ….3
(or is it laughs?) of roughing it (or living the life?) hyenas. ….6 …The asides in parentheses do not add to the poem’s rhetoric in fact they work to its detriment in that it took this reader out of the poetic flow and movement of the poem.
permeate the air like smoke from earthen stoves. ….4
cooking charcoal to sell to the cafes. ….1
who serve their coffee authentic. Such fancy rations. ….2
for the tourists and their spoiled children, ….5
imported coffee and himbasha loaves and the occasional child. … 5
to be brought back home and shown the wonders of screaming…3
into one's phone, complaining about such meager rations…2
as foreign bread and coffee! A hyena…6
grins -- "Isn't she cute?" -- while the café…1
drives away the beggar from their stove…4 ……This is one of the better strophes IMHO.
for the tourists to take their picture. "Back home, our stove….4
are powered by electricity. They're safe enough for a child….5
to touch, so long as she's not metal." The owner of the café….1
musses his daughter's hair. "Come on, stop your screaming….3
Out there in New York, there are no hyenas…6
and you won't have to save your rations….2
like it's wartime." "Baba, it's not about the rations…2
nor the burns on my arms this ancient stove…4
has all the right to inflict. Are you sure there are no hyenas….6
where you ask to send me? Where none of the children….5
seem to suffer, where none of them cry and scream?”….3
The sun sets. The tourists leave the café….1
with their new child. The grinning hyena…6
rubs her back against the dying stove, her rations…2
lying in a pile behind the café. Another scream….3 ………The images portrayed by strophes S5-S7 are quite vivid in depicting human trafficking..
There is much to like here with the dark undertones of the reality of the frequency of human trafficking in 3rd world countries depicted rather vividly. This is a chilling poem although the “sestina” formula IMHO detracts from the rhetoric of the poem. The sestina is supposed to highlight an idea--- but is constrictive in that it must follow a specific pattern and formula. While it does allow for the writer the chance to mull over the themes that obsesses them I think that if you want to go the formal route perhaps a “Litany” might IMHO better serve in order to hammer home the trope. Nonetheless this is a message well-worth the ticket of admission. Thanks for allowing me to tinker with this. Best of luck with any further revisions.
Cheers.
Beowulf
First off I need to make a disclaimer: I’m no formalist so what follows may be of little or no relevance. But I am somewhat familiar with the sestina as a poetic form or at least I was once.
Re: The title of the piece, I’m left asking the question whether or not you really need to entitle this poem according to it’s literary form. I mean its format is relatively clear: 6 stanzas of six lines each accompanied by a tercet. That including the repetition of the end word (retrogradatio cruciata) kinda sinks it, (although the pair of lines in each of the strophes do not add to 7). Furthermore, the poem is not penned in iambic pentameter S1L2 by my count only has 9 syllables. I guess you are writing a more modern less formulaic version of the sestina.
Some in-line notes follow:
Sestina
March, sum// mer for //suckers//, fills the //café//… 1
with those //who dress// in vin//tage, ra//tion. ….2……………Only 9 syllables by my count.
like it's wartime, and silently scream … 3
into their phones, "This world's a stove. …4
run out of gas! Who can raise a child. …5
in this climate?" All while the old hyena…. 6
laughs, skulking for food. Here in Addis Ababa, hyenas…..6 ……Addis Abba- I guess that we are in Ethiopia or is it Eretria.
fill the streets at night, scavenge the cafés. …1
and hospitals for left-behind children ….5
like beggars for scraps of himbasha. "Wasted rations”,… 2
thinks the beggar tending an old stove, …. 4
"all a mother's labor, all her screams. …3 ….The lexical repetition holds in S2 but not in the rest of the strophes.
dissolved by stomach acid." Every night, the screams. ….3
(or is it laughs?) of roughing it (or living the life?) hyenas. ….6 …The asides in parentheses do not add to the poem’s rhetoric in fact they work to its detriment in that it took this reader out of the poetic flow and movement of the poem.
permeate the air like smoke from earthen stoves. ….4
cooking charcoal to sell to the cafes. ….1
who serve their coffee authentic. Such fancy rations. ….2
for the tourists and their spoiled children, ….5
imported coffee and himbasha loaves and the occasional child. … 5
to be brought back home and shown the wonders of screaming…3
into one's phone, complaining about such meager rations…2
as foreign bread and coffee! A hyena…6
grins -- "Isn't she cute?" -- while the café…1
drives away the beggar from their stove…4 ……This is one of the better strophes IMHO.
for the tourists to take their picture. "Back home, our stove….4
are powered by electricity. They're safe enough for a child….5
to touch, so long as she's not metal." The owner of the café….1
musses his daughter's hair. "Come on, stop your screaming….3
Out there in New York, there are no hyenas…6
and you won't have to save your rations….2
like it's wartime." "Baba, it's not about the rations…2
nor the burns on my arms this ancient stove…4
has all the right to inflict. Are you sure there are no hyenas….6
where you ask to send me? Where none of the children….5
seem to suffer, where none of them cry and scream?”….3
The sun sets. The tourists leave the café….1
with their new child. The grinning hyena…6
rubs her back against the dying stove, her rations…2
lying in a pile behind the café. Another scream….3 ………The images portrayed by strophes S5-S7 are quite vivid in depicting human trafficking..
There is much to like here with the dark undertones of the reality of the frequency of human trafficking in 3rd world countries depicted rather vividly. This is a chilling poem although the “sestina” formula IMHO detracts from the rhetoric of the poem. The sestina is supposed to highlight an idea--- but is constrictive in that it must follow a specific pattern and formula. While it does allow for the writer the chance to mull over the themes that obsesses them I think that if you want to go the formal route perhaps a “Litany” might IMHO better serve in order to hammer home the trope. Nonetheless this is a message well-worth the ticket of admission. Thanks for allowing me to tinker with this. Best of luck with any further revisions.
Cheers.
Beowulf