Sestina
This week, I started into the largest chapter of Marisa De Andrade’s book, “Public Health, Humanities and Magical Realism. Public Health, Humanities and Magical Realism” (De Andrade, 2022). Chapter 3 is called, “Measuring Humanity”, and begins with an invitation to read, and listen to a podcast on, Elizabeth Bishop’s Sestina, which word is both the title and form of the poem.
I was struck by the elegance of this structure for a poem — so I thought I’d try it for myself. I chose six words related to the vision for my current research into the use of audio pedagogy: listen, silence, imagery, understand, resonate, and voice. Using the strict format rules for how the words must appear at the end of each line of the six-verse poem and in the final envoi, I came up with my own sestina (from the Italian for six).
This is the structure, for how the six words appear in each line of the six verses and the envoi:
1 2 3 4 5 6
6 1 5 2 4 3
3 6 4 1 2 5
5 3 2 6 1 4
4 5 1 3 6 2
2 4 6 5 3 1
(6 2) (1 4) (5 3)And here is the poem. I quite like it.
A sestina for my research participants
As you prepare to listen
take time to hear the silence
and focus on whatever mental imagery
may help you begin to understand
feel those things that resonate
the prose, the music, the voice.
Take notice of that voice
be concious of how you listen.
Do somehow things resonate
as they step into your silence?
May you find something to understand
that was hidden in the imagery
the different forms of imagery
of taste, and touch, and voice
that only you can understand.
To which you alone can listen
as they penetrate your silence.
Nothing may resonate.
Yet everything may resonate
in a cacophony of imagery
that banishes all silence
drowning every voice.
If you could only listen
you may learn to understand.
Things that you must understand
if you are going to resonate
with others who want you to listen
who want to show you imagery
and tell you with their own voice
instead of the usual silence.
That awful deadly silence
that nobody will understand
because they fill it with their own voice
that will crush and resonate
obscuring all imagery
if they would only listen.
Please hear my voice in the silence
make the effort to listen and understand
so you can resonate with my imagery.First posted on substack.