What Is A Clipped Sestina?
The Clipped Sestina is a poetry form created by Sam Kilkenny. It is based on the traditional French Sestina. The biggest difference is that the Clipped Sestina is shorter in length, or has been clipped down from 39 lines to 10. The purpose is to make the traditional sestina more approachable while maintaining its unique characteristics.
How Do You Write A Clipped Sestina?
The Clipped Sestina adheres to the following rules:
- It is a poem of 10 lines
- It has 3 stanzas of 3 lines each, followed by a closing line
- It is unrhymed
- The same three end words must occur in every stanza but in a changing order that follows a set pattern
- The end words of the first stanza are repeated in a different order as end words in each of the subsequent stanzas.
- The last line must use all 3 end words.
These numbers represent the order of the end words for each stanza:
1 2 3
3 1 2
2 3 1
(use all 3 words in any order)
(See highlighted example below)
There are many ways to approach this form. You could begin with a final line and then pull out your 3 repetition words from that. You could have 3 words in mind from the start. Or you could start quite naturally with the first line and build the repetition from there.
Don’t be discouraged if your first attempt reads weird. The requirements of the clipped sestina are hard to grasp at first and first attempts typically need to be worked over a few times to come out right.
Example of A Clipped Sestina
Here is a highlighted example of the Clipped Sestina by Corey Bryan
the similarities of a frozen can of beer
forgotten and left to explode, and the face
of someone crying are remarkably similar
it’s the little things that make them similar
accidentally being left in the freezer a beer
takes on bloated features, sorrow, a wet face
and crying creates bloated features, sorrow, a wet face
sometimes poetry is just saying one thing is similar
to another. a crying face and a weeping beer.
they stop being similar quick, there’s a smile on my face when i open the beer.
Advantages of the Clipped Sestina
Like the traditional sestina, the advantage of using the form is how easily it accommodates itself to common conversations. When chatting with someone people tend to repeat things back to each other as a form of affirmation. For example: “what would you like?” “I would like… well what would you recommend?” “I would recommend the steak.” “Okay, I’ll have the steak.”
The other advantage of the clipped sestina is how it lends itself to a circular narrative, a story that ends where it began. The repetition can mean that nothing really happens. Instead, a theme is explored or built upon.
Challenges of the Clipped Sestina
The repetition can also pose a challenge. A certain word might sound weird repeated 3 times in only 10 lines and you only realize it at the end. The envoy poses another challenge. Fitting the 3 words into a final line can sometimes sound forced. Remember to play around and that it may take a few tries to get a clipped sestina you like.
As always the forms are just tools. Don’t be afraid to break the rules, change up the end words, drop the end line, or abandon the form completely. It should be fun and challenging, but should not get in the way of expression.
Writing Prompts
Prompt 1 – The Worst Town
Think of the worst town, real or imaginary, what does it look like? Smell like? Feel like? Be as nice or mean as you’d like.
Example:
The route there is empty – flat, straight, no trees, no nothing.
There used to be cattle but they all asked to be slaughtered to get out.
A smell hangs over the town like smog over shanghai, it says ‘you have arrived.’
But you haven’t yet got another 5 miles or so through that stench before you arrive.
Here’s main street, a block with no charm, history or character. Nothing
to redeem itself. Only ghastly buildings and nasty people who want you out.
“What are you here?” I want to yell at them, “You should get out!”
The mine is gone, the work gone with it, nothing left from when settlers first arrived.
Maybe there’s something heroic about staying in your hometown for nothing?
They should make a sign, “you have arrived,” it reads, “nothing here for you now get out.”
Prompt 2 – Dialogue
Write a clipped sestina that is mostly dialogue. This form caters nicely to dialogue due to its difficult end words. Conversations have a tendency to repeat words so use that to your advantage.
Example:
“I can’t believe –”
“Believe it. It’s happening right now.”
I was shocked.
“I’m shocked.”
“Yeah a lot of people don’t believe.”
“So all of this is now–”
“This whole side of the menu is a dollar now.”
“Holy… Ok so would you be shocked-”
“If you order everything? No, that I can believe.”
Later, I was shocked that I believed that all this food wouldn’t suck now. Because it did.
Prompt 3 – Hard Questions
When faced with difficult questions, the answer is not usually immediately obvious. Write about a time when you had to answer a question you might not have been ready for. Or, as the example shows, just make one up!
Example:
she comes downstairs and gives my left cheek a kiss
I stop eating cereal and say good morning. She smiles
“would you still love me if I were a worm?”
“would I still love you if you were a worm??”
“yes, exactly” she says, and gives my other cheek a kiss
“does your worm body have your face? your smiles?”
“i’m a pink earth worm, no face, one long body, no smiles”
there cereal is soggy now. I love her so much but a worm?
she taps her foot, eyes furrowed. I give both her cheeks a kiss
“I think I’d kiss your worm head every day.” she smiles.
Prompt 4 – Spilling Tea or Coffee
It’s just annoying. Use this as an opportunity to air out those grievances. It doesn’t have to be tea or coffee, just a drink that takes more than a second to make, and channel the pain of having to remake it.
Example:
in the morning I try to rise with the sun
trying to keep a routine, I always make coffee,
and I always make it the same way: black
I don’t even think I prefer it black
but it’s easy. I keep it simple because the sun
does too. Rise in east, set in west. No coffee
required. If the sun had chores he’d drink coffee
I bet. I grab my mug and start to pour the pot’s black
liquid on the counter, contents hot as the sun.
I curse the stupid, lazy sun. Curse the stupid, hot coffee. Who even likes it black?
Prompt 5 – Found Beauty
There’s a lot of beauty in the world but we’re trying to push past the traditional topics in nature like trees and clouds and sunlight. Try hard to find appreciation in non-traditional topics. For me, it’s the beauty not in nature, but in man-made creations.
Example:
“Just pay attention”
It took me a while at first, to notice the sparkle.
Just another walk through the park, when glitter
shone through the leaves, vibrant and reflective
I remember her 3 words: sparkle, glitter, reflective
So apt and so attune. I’d never seen a sparkle
like that. “Just pay attention, and you’ll see the glitter”
she always said. I didn’t believe her. Glitter
is so unnatural. But it lives in the sidewalk, reflective
as a mirror. Concrete like a jewelry case: sparkling
Man made sparkle, its glittering treasure beautiful and reflective
Prompt 6 – RNG
Oftentimes figuring out what to say is the hardest part about poetry. For this clipped sestina, use a random word generator or get a friend to give you three random words. Create a clipped sestina with those random words!
example:
Randomly Generated Words: valley, desperate, cooperate
it’s a long way down to the bottom of the valley
shrubs cling on the sheer walls like desperate
fingers, clutching to life. sunlight and shadow cooperate
to create black tendrils out of trees. they cooperate
to send shivers all the way down the valley.
each year of no rain, the flora grows desperate.
each year of no flora, the fauna grows desperate.
but i can’t abide this, i can’t cooperate
i’ll build a ladder until it reaches the bottom of the valley
desperate, i cut the trees. begrudgingly they cooperate, building my ladder to the valley
Prompt 7 – Likenesses
Try to find the common thread between two unlike objects. It’s really an exercise of stretching what possible similarities exist between objects.
Example:
the similarities of a frozen can of beer
forgotten and left to explode, and the face
of someone crying are remarkably similar
it’s the little things that make them similar
accidentally being left in the freezer a beer
takes on bloated features, sorrow, a wet face
and crying creates bloated features, sorrow, a wet face
sometimes poetry is just saying one thing is similar
to another. a crying face and a weeping beer.
they stop being similar quick. there’s a smile on my face when i open the beer.
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