The sestina and...

[billy]

other poetry forms.
i'm starting to do a rhyming sestina, don't all wet yourselves at once
the problems i having at the moment with it is getting more than 5 minutes on it at any given time. take now for instance, i'm here instead of there, in the sestina. WTF is he on about you ask, as you pluck out your eyeballs and polish them up on sandpaper. well it's this; is it all worth it?
i keep getting waylaid i'm cooking spag and beefburgers for dinner and i have to have a bath cos i stink....is it a worthwhile thing to do. heres what a sestina looks like if you're interested in trying your hand at one. nasty bastard it is.

the thing is i'm enjoyingh the few minutes break i get trying to complete it, at present all i have is the 36 end rhymes and the first two lines of it, but i'm loving it. will i do a function room full of them...not on your life but i'm enjoying doing it. so enjoyment is one thing it's worthwhile of.

i'm not sure i'll learn much else though the iamb work will come in handy for meter experience so yowser i'm actually learning something. i know many are thinking "fuck off you horrible little person" you could have said man instead of person, but think about it. how often is poetry a challenge, i mean a real challenge where you have to really push yourself hard because you're outside your box, grasping at straws and floating on house bricks?
so back to the question is it worth it? for me it is, does anyone else have any views on pushing oneself with stuff you really have little clue about?

[Leanne]

Whenever I can't think of anything to write, am in a masochistic mood and have some small amount of time to spare, I find that picking a form I've never tried (or have tried with little success) is an excellent way to get things moving. The discipline required to not only choose the right words for the poem, but also to make them fit into a form without sounding too forced, is invaluable to a writer. Whether you like the finished product or not, just being able to say "I've done one of those" is a bit of a buzz (well, for me it is, but I'm kind of nerdy...)

I haven't written many sestinas, simply because of the massive amount of time required (usually) to get all the patterns right, but I think I've probably got the form nailed (to a degree at least). My own personal bugbear is the Chaucerian (English) madrigal, which I will put in the practice section at some point, but I need to know I've got a reasonable handle on it before I go throwing it at anyone else

[billy]

I would like to tell you what you can do with the madrigal, chaucerian or other but i'm a real gent i am
there is some sense of satisfaction when i complete something i'm not proficient at to some seemingly reasonable degree of competence. what i like is that we have a list of forms with hints and tips as to how they can be best done. they make great standbys for learning something about poetry specially when your heads up your arse with the other mundane stuff called life looking forward to the madrigal.....do you think people can tell i'm lying

[Philatone]

the pieces that take me the longest a) come with the biggest sense of relief once they are 'done', and b) help the work you do in the future. i find that it makes writing other poems go more smoothly; it's like your mental training. maybe i'm too optimistic about it though

[billy]

do the long poems take longer to do? that's the case for me
though sometimes a short poem is easier to agonise over

[Bronte]

other poetry forms.
i'm starting to do a rhyming sestina, don't all wet yourselves at once
the problems i having at the moment with it is getting more than 5 minutes on it at any given time. take now for instance, i'm here instead of there, in the sestina. WTF is he on about you ask, as you pluck out your eyeballs and polish them up on sandpaper. well it's this; is it all worth it?
i keep getting waylaid i'm cooking spag and beefburgers for dinner and i have to have a bath cos i stink....is it a worthwhile thing to do. heres what a sestina looks like if you're interested in trying your hand at one. nasty bastard it is.

the thing is i'm enjoyingh the few minutes break i get trying to complete it, at present all i have is the 36 end rhymes and the first two lines of it, but i'm loving it. will i do a function room full of them...not on your life but i'm enjoying doing it. so enjoyment is one thing it's worthwhile of.

i'm not sure i'll learn much else though the iamb work will come in handy for meter experience so yowser i'm actually learning something. i know many are thinking "fuck off you horrible little person" you could have said man instead of person, but think about it. how often is poetry a challenge, i mean a real challenge where you have to really push yourself hard because you're outside your box, grasping at straws and floating on house bricks?
so back to the question is it worth it? for me it is, does anyone else have any views on pushing oneself with stuff you really have little clue about?

so you are cooking and doing dishes that dont mean you mind is turned off . you can still compose a poem as tou work.. just feel it happen and the meal will be the best thing you ever tasted/.

[billy]

i finished it eventually, but doing a poem while i cook could be hazardous to someone's health.
while i'm pretty good at multi tasking, doing poetry and something other that having a dump isn't an option.
i often thinks of a poem as i go to sleep and never remember it. i refuse to keep a pad and pencil at hand,
it's just not me. so when i cook i can juggle and whistle and hold sensible conversations but i can't hold a poem