There are times when one is forced to adhere to a form. This was one of them. I tried for days to write something and eventually gave up, totally frustrated. I still had to turn something in so I came up with this. It says very little, and yet so very much.
The Sestina Entitled: F^*k It
I cannot write this frigging sestina.
I am completely confounded by this poem.
I can’t think of a good enough subject
to keep me writing for six and a half stanzas.
This poem has me completely frustrated
and I doubt it will be good enough to turn in.
I started learning poetry when I was in
high school, but they didn’t teach me the sestina.
If it were my choice I would not be writing this poem,
I would be writing a story on some other subject.
I feel that paragraphs are better than stanzas
because they don’t leave me frustrated.
I wouldn’t be as pissed off and frustrated
if I was able to force myself to write in
the proper poetic style. This sestina
has given me a headache, but I already wrote a poem
about that. I doubt whether any other subject
could baffle me as much as these stanzas.
I tried to put a story in these stanzas.
Instead there is this endless bitch-fest that frustrated
me. I wish there was something meaningful in
what I am writing. Instead this sestina
is a pointless rant. There should be meaning in this poem
but that is something that is lacking in this subject.
I’m not sure what I expected when I started this subject.
I probably didn’t expect to be writing in stanzas.
Writing prose leaves me much less frustrated,
and it is much easier to write a story in
prose. I wanted to work a story into this sestina
but then if it were my choice I would not be writing a poem.
My problem with writing this poem
is that I have to adhere to the form. I am subject
to the limit on the number of lines, the stanzas
and the way each line has to end has frustrated
me. I feel like I should put a story in
this poem. But it’s too late because I am almost done with this sestina.
So I’ll put the story in at the end of this poem.
There once was a girl who took a subject that made her frustrated.
So she wrote her assignment in stanzas that fit in the form of the sestina.
