The SESTINA - attributed to France's Arnaut Daniel - is a strict ordered form of poetry, dating back to twelfth century French troubadours. It is one of the most difficult and complex poetic forums to pull off.

A sestina consists of six SESTETS stanzas followed by a three-line envoy. Rather than use a rhyme scheme, the end words of the first stanza are repeated in varied order as end words in the other stanzas and also recur in the envoy.



Example by Anthony Hecht:
*NOTE* the 1st 2 stanzas are numbered for easy schematic referencing

Sestina d'Inverno

Here in this bleak city of Rochester, (1)
Where there are twenty-seven words for "snow," (2)
Not all of them polite, the wayward mind (3)
Basks in some Yucatan of its own making, (4)
Some coppery, sleek lagoon, or cinnamon island (5)
Alive with lemon tints and burnished natives, (6)

And O that we were there. But here the natives (6)
Of this grey, sunless city of Rochester (1)
Have sown whole mines of salt about their land (5)
(Bare ruined Carthage that it is) while snow (2)
Comes down as if The Flood were in the making. (4)
Yet on that ocean Marvell called the mind (3)

An ark sets forth which is itself the mind,
Bound for some pungent green, some shore whose natives
Blend coriander, cayenne, mint in making
Roasts that would gladden the Earl of Rochester
With sinfulness, and melt a polar snow.
It might be well to remember that an island

Was blessed heaven once, more than an island,
The grand, utopian dream of a noble mind.
In that kind climate the mere thought of snow
Was but a wedding cake; the youthful natives,
Unable to conceive of Rochester,
Made love, and were acrobatic in the making.

Dream as we may, there is far more to making
Do than some wistful reverie of an island,
Especially now when hope lies with the Rochester
Gas and Electric Co., which doesn't mind
Such profitable weather, while the natives
Sink, like Pompeians, under a world of snow.

The one thing indisputable here is snow,
The single verity of heaven's making,
Deeply indifferent to the dreams of the natives,
And the torn hoarding-posters of some island.
Under our igloo skies the frozen mind
Holds to one truth: it is grey, and called Rochester.

No island fantasy survives Rochester,
Where to the natives destiny is snow
That is neither to our mind nor of our making.