Sestina day 5: A Cautionary Tale

March 18th

The other day I was at a literary salon at Bank Street Arts in Sheffield. The idea was that we could have a poetry reading where the audience weren’t afraid to heckle, challenge and otherwise bother the readers. This I approve of. The painful, martyrish, polite restraint that pervades spoken word audiences gets on my nerves. Imagine what would happen at a comedy or music open mic night if you totally bombed. The audience would let you know. It would be unpleasant, but then you could choose to give it up, change your material or soldier on, assuming that they’d get it eventually. At a spoken word night, it takes a certain amount of self awareness, and ability to read the mood to know if the silence is stunned awe or embarrased, barely contained snorts of the wrong kind of mirth. And if you haven’t got much self awareness or ability to read the mood, you are very likely to mistake the latter for the former.

So, in theory, challenging this seemed great, and I was honoured to be asked to read at the first one.
But…. I dunno, sounds a bit pretentious, doesn’t it?
I think it was OK, a couple of moments that made me cringe. I think sometimes we were all trying a bit too hard to get it right, and still worried about hurting tender poets’ feelings. Actually, I had a really nice time.
I explained the sestina-a-day thing (hmmm…worrying about seeming pretentious? it’s posssible the horse has bolted through that particular stable door) and was givensome deliberately problematic words.
So, Bank Street Arts Salonniers, this one’s for you. Take heed. And enjoy the homophonic cheats further down.

He looks up witty things to say on Google
Finds famous epigrams on Wikipedia
To sprinkle in his speech. Wears corduroy
To look Bohemian: pretentious bastard.
His glowing auburn skin is soaked in spray-tan.
Surrounded by young, sycophantic belles,

He’s propping up the bar until the bell s
-Ounds for last orders. On his phone, he Googles
To see where else he can show off his spray-tan
And brags “It’s not on Wikipedia,
But I know this new club, though it’s a bastard
To get in, if you’re wearing corduroy,

But I don’t give a shit. My corduroy’s
A statement. I’ll get in. I mean, hell bells!
This scene would fold without me. If some bastard
turns me away, he’ll see, if he checks Google
Or else my page on Wikipedia
That I’m not just a pretty face.” His spray tan

Confirms that statement. (Note: he got that spray-tan,
Which, sadly, clashes with his corduroy,
Because an article on Wikipedia
About ‘ironic chic’ was ringing bells
With him, and so he bought a can on Google.
Now goes by ‘Rusty Irony’ – smug bastard.

Fast forward to that club. The slimy bastard
Got in, despite his corduroy and spray-tan
And now he’s boasting of the hits on Google
His name is getting these days “Cor! Do roy-
Als feel as loved as this?” Those belles
(Who looked him up today, on Wikipedia,

To see if he was ‘hip’, for Wikipedia
Is actually a great “who’s who” for bastards.)
Giggle on cue. One young, lurex-clad belle
Seems rather keen. He swoops. His prey tan-
Goes with him. Lurex and corduroy
Ignite with friction: look it up on Google.

Fire engine bells – it says on Wikipedia,
And also Google – couldn’t save the bastard.
It burns fast, spray-tan, so does corduroy.

 

Sestina Day 4. Advice for Alien Spies.

THURSDAY, 17 MARCH 2011

Well, when people like my new friend Kiri give me keywords like ketchup, monocle, birdbath, squash, gargoyle and alienation, it’s not going to be the most straightforward of poems.
So, this sestina has a backstory. A race of Gargoyle-like aliens have sent spies ahead to integrate into human society prior to a massive invasion. The aliens require high levels of sugar and salt to survive in our atmosphere. The following is a transcript of the instructions issued by the mothership to the Gargoyd spies.
This also seemed to good time to venture away from the safety net of iambic pentameter. Um… enjoy…?

The best thing for blending in quickly is ketchup
Eat it on all meals. Please wear a monocle
To seem more eccentric. and also a birdbath
Is there for the birds, it is frowned on to squash
Yourself into a birdbath and squat like a gargoyle.
Avoid all sensations of alienation.

To combat the nausea and alienation,
We can’t stress enough that your best friend is ketchup
Dont be dismayed if you find that your gargoyle
Features are showing, ’cause wearing a monocle
May hide the seams if you totally squash it
Right to your eyeball. Hang out near a birdbath

We’re told older humans enjoy watching birdbaths,
That viewing small birds combats alienation.
Some elderly humans play games such as squash
But this isn’t compulsory. Stick to the ketchup
And those dressed as males may favour the monocle
You’ll be observed by our surveillance gargoyle

Our cameras are hidden in each churchyard gargoyle
And there is a microphone under the birdbath
The tracking device that’s concealed in each monocle
Keeps you in touch with the Alien Nation
Replace vital sugars and salts using ketchup
We’ve found it delicious on butternut squash.

The humanoid species are easy to squash
Phase two will involve you reverting to gargoyle-
Mode and controlling the masses through Ketchup
For more on this plan stay in range of the Birdbath
And try to blend in, because alienation
Will hinder our plans. We can see through your monocle.

When battle commences you’ll find that your monocle
Serves as a mind control beam that can squash
All the human resistance of Alien Nation
And soon, when the dominant species is gargoyle
We’ll laugh at them, twitching like birds in a birdbath
And then we will feast on them, smothered in ketchup.

The Alien Nation needs you and your monocle
To utilise Ketchup when starting to squash
All the humans. Each Gargoyle report to your birdbath.

 

Sestina Day 3: Haunted

WEDNESDAY, 16 MARCH 2011

Two today, I got a bit ahead of myself.

This time, the words (passed surface doorway light place house) were suggested by @OliverMantel, from Twitter. Hello, Oliver.

It came out pretty dark, which wasn’t inherent in the words, so it must be me.

She seemed to see a shadow as she passed:
A ghostly face in each reflective surface,
A silhouetted figure in the doorway.
She hurried onward in the fading light,
feeling the chilling malice of the place,
she longed to get away from the old house.

She’d felt she ought to see her childhood house
Because well over 80 years had passed
Since anyone had occupied the place,
She had imagined dust on every surface
Her mind’s eye casting a nostalgic light,
The evening sunbeams streaming through the doorway

These thoughts had opened up a sort of doorway
Inside her head. She’d giggled with delight
Remembering the joy in her old house
Before the night her loving mother passed
Away, and though he seemed fine on the surface
Her father somehow never found his place

But yes, the house had been a happy place
The memories came flooding through the doorway
She and her brother, skidding on a surface
Of polished wood, that velvet tasselled light-
Shade that she’d stroke each time she passed,
The marble dog that stood before the house

So thinking that she’d like to see the house,
(And maybe tidy round the dear old place
Put ghosts to bed and exorcise the past)
She knew as soon as she could see the doorway
Which seemed to glow with some unearthly light
That those horrific memories would surface

The spattered blood she’d found on every surface
The awful silence filling up the house
Her baby brother, lying in the light
Of evening sunbeams, when she’d found the place
Her father’d strung himself up in the doorway
His last attempt to uncreate the past.

The house is old, and as the horrors surface
She leaves the past behind, enters the light.
Deserts that place, and passes through the doorway.

Kate Bornstein is probably, of all the people I feel I know, but really I’ve just read their books, the person I admire the most in the world.
Anyone (most people I’ve met) who has become embroiled with me in an argument about gender and sexuality can blame, or rather credit, Kate’s work for challenging, inspiring and politicising me into the gobby, queer, poke-gender-binary-with-a-stick-and-see-what-happens feminist/heretic you see before you today.
And I’m absolutely not going to go all high pitched and swoony about the fact that she has on occasion, tweeted me. Or that today’s (extra) sestina’s keywords were suggested by her.
Happy belated birthday, Kate. A soppy romance from one Piscean to another.
(SQUEEEEEE! *thud*)

You took my hand and led me to the green
And purple of the moorland. It seemed endless
You said ‘I come here when the world goes mad
The birds and flowers give me sanctuary’
And at the time I thought you rather silly
And wondered when on earth we’d get to fuck

I felt it was a given that we’d fuck:
Why would you bring me out into the green,
away from all the crowds and from the silly
Gossips whose insinuations endless-
Ly upset you and disturbed your sanctuary
If not to fuck? I thought you must be mad.

But still, there seemed no point in getting mad
I mean, you seemed to like me. How the fuck
Did that happen? I’d searched for sanctuary
In love before but only found the Green-
Eyed Monster, and the tears and endless
Arguments just left me feeling silly.

But then you came, and never called me silly
And what my other lovers saw as mad-
Ness, you referred to as my endless
Store of creativity. I loved to fuck.
As much as you loved walking in the green,
Wild, open spaces, seeking sanctuary

I’d never thought that you’d need sanctuary
You always seemed so calm, while I was silly
You told me that you tried to hold the green
Inside yourself to keep from going mad
When dealing with the daily awful fuck-
Ing tragedies that, sometimes, seemed so endless

I’d always tried to push away the endless
Sadness in me; not by seeking sanctuary
Instead, distraction. Dancing, drinking, fuck-
Ing till I felt carefree and silly.
But inside I was slowly going mad
Till you showed me the peace in hills of green

And when we fucked, I knew our love was endless.
Just like the green that is our sanctuary.
And being silly stops us going mad.

 

Sestina Day 2: Tits, Arse and… Liver?

TUESDAY, 15 MARCH 2011

Today’s keywords were suggested by the filthyminded @hannahthehobbit. I don’t know where she got ‘liver’ from.  Right old spanner in the works!

You must admit I have amazing tits
And noone here has such a perfect arse
Mine is the name on everybody’s lips
Hot property, they’d like to get their fingers
On my assets. Yes, a humble lass from Liver-
Pool made good. But I don’t know… Sometimes I feel

Nostalgic for the days when I could feel
Some vestige of sensation in my tits
And when I hadn’t trashed my pickled liver
But poverty’s a right pain in the arse
So i just smile and flirt when someone fingers
My thigh. I smile with artificial lips.

I love my collagen injected lips:
It really makes a difference I can feel
When smearing on the lipgloss with my fingers
I love my perky double D cup tits
I’ve got no time for you if you’re an arse
About my looks. I have been a hard liver-

I hate to think about my poor old liver
You drink a lot when giving rich men lips-
Ervice. You kiss a lot of arse.
And somehow all those drinks help you to feel
Less bothered as you smile, and show your tits,
And try to dodge their sweaty sausage fingers

I miss my mother’s food: chips and fish fingers
Or else a lovely steaming plate of liver
And onions, but these great pretentious tits
Serve caviar which bursts between your lips
And doesn’t fill you up. instead they feel
You up. His hands are never off my arse.

But he is such a grateful little arse
I make more cash than if had light fingers
Its easy work. I don’t want you to feel
Sorry for me. Well, maybe for my liver
But I know what I’m doing. Read my lips:
I’ve really made my living out of tits

And when I feel he’s too much of an arse
Grabbing my tits, I slap away his fingers.
I’d eat his liver whole, and smack my lips.

 

Sestina Day One: Green

(written 14 March 2011)

This first one was suggested by Geraldine Byrne, who gave me the keywords ‘damp, smoke, green, dark, stolen, free.’It is, as yet, untitled.

The flat is small and cold and smells of damp
and unwashed bodies, and the fragrant smoke
of cannabis, a sticky bag of green
lies on the floor. The room is growing dark
There’s music coming from an ipod (stolen)
The lad is good at living cheap or free

He knows that he is lucky to be free
He’d rather be here in this tiny, damp
and smelly flat. Than inside. Cos he’s stolen
More than ipods. And he tends to smoke
The kind of thing you purchase after dark
On street corners. He likes to see the green

Of city parks. In prison there’s no green.
There have been times he nearly lost his free-
Dom, sent him running through the dark
The cops in hot pursuit, his forehead damp
But he can vanish like a puff of smoke.
He’s not amoral. Everything he’s stolen

Has been from rich old bastards, who have stolen
From us, the poor, for years as a green-
Eyed girl once said. She taught him how to smoke,
How to rebel, ignore the state, live free
A scared young runaway, afraid and damp
Lost in the freezing city after dark

Hers was the voice who called him from the dark
She shared with him a sandwich that she’d stolen
And said she knew a squat. Warm, not too damp
Where he could crash. Her eyes were emerald green
She said since she was 13 she’d been free
Her voice was low and scratchy from the smoke

Back at the squat she’d offered him a smoke
They’d cuddled close together in the dark
The boy felt that, at last, he might be free
To leave the past behind, a childhood stolen
And gaze intently into eyes of green
Remembering, his cheeks are growing damp.

But thoughts are free, and, when he starts to smoke
Though cold and damp, he doesn’t mind the dark
Thinking of stolen kisses, eyes of green.

A Sestina A Day Keeps The Illiterate Away.

My name is Sez. I like sestinas. I like reading them and I like writing them.

As a result I have decided to write one a day for 100 days. I’m 16 days in so I will be transferring my archive so far over forthwith, and then updating daily.

Poets are often intimidated by the sestina. Its uncompromising structure can be daunting to attempt. I see them more as poetry sudoku. You put down your keywords first, and then fill in the poem. The story suggested by the six words is taking shape before you even start.

Sestinas are very difficult if you have an idea of what you want the poem to be about, and try to force it. The best way, I find is to let the keywords – and my subconscious – do the talking.

A sestina is certainly easier to write than to explain.

Here are some links that may help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestina

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5792

http://poetry.about.com/od/poeticforms/g/sestina.htm

As far as I can tell, the rules are so complicated that everyone has their own version. The keyword order in the envoi at the end seems to be a particular bone of contention.

I like the way I do them.