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Monday, October 8, 2012

Persimmons in sestina (2nd & 3rd stanzas)

I started writing "Persimmons in sestina" last Monday without André, who indeed would like to have joined me, but couldn't:
I'm glad that you've gone ahead and started one on your own, as it may be a couple of weeks before I can start mine. I'm eager to see what you will produce; I imagine it will be a challenge to keep to your timetable for each stanza.
As you've correctly alluded to in your blog post, I've been snowed under with work and events. This has been the busiest week of the semester, and I apologize that I haven't gotten back to you sooner.
    In the week following publication of Stanza 1, I've decided to complete the sestina in only three more stages by adding two more stanzas each Monday. So now, to Stanza 1, I add Stanzas 2 and 3:

Persimmons becoming sestina:
October's the season for persimmons.
Heavier, heavier becomes the tree
As its roots absorb the watering rain
And color and light pervade the garden,
Everything jubilating in the sun
Under a vibrantly sheltering sky.

Sometimes wet trouble booms in the sky,
And its dark clouds cover the persimmons
Utterly from any warm ray of sun,
And every plant and bush and seed and tree
Established in the folds of our garden
Feel the cold overabundance of rain.

But not forever ever falls the rain.
Suddenly the delight of open sky
Returns hallelujahs to the garden,
Even to caving worms in persimmons
And birds eyeing them from a branch of tree,
Now bathed again in salving rays of sun.
Stanzas 4 & 5 (next Monday) must use the end-words in the following order:
...sun
...rain
...tree
...sky
...persimmons
...garden

[stanza 5]
...garden
...sun
...persimmons
...rain
...sky
...tree

1 comment:

  1. I had little idea how sestina-writing would go, except for a pleasant sense that I could do it. There are two challenges: creating interesting story lines from stanza to stanza, and shaping the words naturally. I haven't met either as well as I would have liked, at least under the constraints I've put on myself—to write quickly in the hour or two preceding the scheduling of a post to publish at 12:00 a.m. on the appointed day.

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