An experiment in form: Channeling a beat poet
I brought a new poem to my writing group last week. They loved it. Said it was the best poem I’d written. I was almost embarrassed at the accolades (notice I said “almost”).
The poem was different than the kind of poem I usually write. For one, it was longer—39 lines. And, the lines themselves were longer than what I normally write. Plus, it was a sestina (a poetic form of 39 lines with 6 stanzas of six lines each and a tercet of three lines at the end. In a sestina, the end words of the first stanza are repeated in a certain order through the rest of the poem). Intriguing? Yes. Easy to do well? Not so much.
onewildword 