If I had a dime for every time someone says, “I’ve read up on the rules for a [some complex poetry form] and no [expletives deleted] way can I write that!” followed by, “Still, I kinda want to try it” I’d be rich. If I had another dime for every time I’ve said or thought it, myself, I wouldn’t be writing this – I’d be buying a very large yacht. My friend Necia said it best, when she wrote, “Sestinas are not the cute green-eyed tree frog. They’re the formaldehyde-soaked bullfrog stuffed into a too-small jar that’s been forgotten in the back of a witch’s dilapidated shed.”
I quibbled with her. “That’s a villanelle. Sestinas are the newts’ eyes in a vat of pickling spices.”
“Ahhh, my bad,” she replied.
“They are the six-fingered chameleons needed for the Spell of Madness,” I added.
“Oh, absolutely!”
Necia and I have a lot of fun. Irreverent fun, when it comes to some of these mind-bending forms. We love a challenge…dammit.
Now, having tried the villanelle, the sestina, the ghazal, the ballade and more, and having wrestled each into submission at least once or twice (usually after muttering, “Never again!”), I’ve found that the easiest thing to do is to use an Excel spreadsheet. Forget pen and paper. Forget Word. The last sestina I wrote was called “an engineering marvel” and what engineer doesn’t love a good spreadsheet? I don’t like to hoard the goodies, so I’m sharing this here for my fellow poets. The rest of you can cast your spells using more mundane equipment. You’ll need Excel (Libre Office will probably open this, too).
poetic-forms-template (new) <<– click that, or right-click and Save as… (It’s a zip file containing one very simple little Excel file.)
There are two tabs in the zipped Excel file; the second is nothing more than a copy of the first, to use as a scratchpad when drafting a poem so that the first need never be touched. I’ll probably add onto this and update it, from time to time. The latest version adds a Sestina worksheet that makes rearranging your end words easier!
This post is dedicated to my new friend, Shannon Perry, in the hope that it helps to uncross her eyes from studying up on the sestina, and to Mervyn Seivwright, who also uses Excel as a scaffold for some of the trickier forms.
You have probably just saved at least one person from bargaining away their soul. Bless you and your spreadsheet (I may or may not offer dried slugs and spider legs to the new moon…) 🤣
Poetic souls are safe with me!
Yes, you do it, and then Facebook laughs at you while it unspools all your careful work and people scratch their heads and say, “What?”
I probably should’ve mentioned that the de-mangler does not work on comments. Only posts in (some) groups have a formatting option at all.
As for the rest, shift+return (a “soft return”) between lines and a period on a line by itself, bracketed by soft returns, at least lets you control line breaks in comments, to some degree.
Holly, this is great! I want to point out where your envoi differs from my understanding of the sestina form: You have A(BDF) three times. Did you mean A(BDF), C(BDF), E(BDF)? According to a resource I have long since forgotten the link to, ACE can be reversed. So, it can also be E(BDF), C(BDF), A(BDF).
I’m glad you’ve shone a light on these alchemical processes! LOL
Cheers,
Mitch
You are absolutely right and I DO have a corrected version. Thank you for reminding me that this needs an update.
Glad to help.
Cheers,
Mitch