30 Days of Poetry - Day 28

Sestina:

A sestina has six unrhymed stanzas with six lines in each stanza. The last words of the first six lines occur in a definite pattern in all of the other stanzas. The pattern for the stanzas is below. Remember, it is the WORD that appears at the end of each line, NOT the entire line itself.

Stanza 1:
A
B
C
D
E
F

Stanza 2:
F
A
E
B
D
C

Stanza 3:
C
F
D
A
B
E

Stanza 4:
E
C
B
F
A
D

Stanza 5:
D
E
A
C
F
B

Stanza 6:
B
D
F
E
C
A

The poem ends with a Tercet:
AB
CD
EF

For an example of a sestina, please look at Scott Reid's Sestina in the Computer Age.

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This page was last updated on
04/19/2003

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