“Sestina” - Elizabeth Bishop Group 2: Matt Cleveland Mindy Goin Charles Gude Megumi Tanaka Zack Zobrist

“Sestina” September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother sits in the kitchen with the child beside the Little Marvel Stove, reading the jokes from the almanac, laughing and talking to hide her tears. She thinks that her equinoctial tears And the rain that bests on the roof of the house Were both foretold by the almanac, But only known to a grandmother. The iron kettle sings on the stove. She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It’s time for tea now; but the child is watching the teakettle’s small hard tears dance like mad on the hot black stove, the way the rain must dance on the house. Tidying up, the old grandmother hangs up the clever almanac on its string. Birdlike, the almanac hovers half open above the child, hovers above the old grandmother and her teacup full of dark brown tears. She shivers and says she thinks the house feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove. I know what I know, says the almanac. With crayons the child draws a rigid house and a winding pathway. Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears and shows it proudly to the grandmother. But secretly, while the grandmother busies herself about the stove, the little moons fall down like tears from between the pages of the almanac into the flower bed the child has carefully placed in the front of the house. Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house.

A Sestina That We Can All Understand It is raining in September on a house. It is around nighttime and a grandmother is sitting in a kitchen, reading an almanac. There is a child in the kitchen, near a Marvel Stove. The Grandmother is trying to keep from crying by reading jokes in the almanac, laughing at those jokes and talking to the child.     The grandmother knows that it is supposed to be rainy because of almanac describes annual weather patterns. She thinks that this also predicts that fact that she is so sad and that she is the only one who interprets it that way. A teakettle on the stove starts to whistle, signaling the tea is done. The grandmother starts cutting some bread and tells the child that it is time for tea.

A Sestina That We Can All Understand … continued   The child just stays in place and watches as the steam continues to pour out and drip from the kettle onto the stove in a similar way that the rain falls on the house. The grandmother then hangs the almanac up on the wall by a string in order to tidy the kitchen up a little. The almanac is open as it hangs on the wall. It is above the child and the grandmother with her cup of tea. The grandmother mentions that she feels cold in the colder season and puts more wood in the stove to keep the room warmer.

A Sestina That We Can All Understand … continued The Marvel Stove and the almanac seem to echo the feeling the grandmother has about things happening in a forward and predictable sense. The child draws a picture of a house with a path curving up to it. The child also draws a man with tear-shaped buttons and then happily shows the drawing to the grandmother. The grandmother starts to work with the stove again. Unnoticed, some calendar pages fall out of the hanging almanac on to a flower bed that the child had at some point put in the front of the house.  The almanac again states how time has passed with this falling out of pages. The grandmother sings as she keeps busy with the stove and the child draws another mysterious house.

It is a complex, French form of poetry. What is a sestina? It is a complex, French form of poetry. A sestina has a very specific structure that it must follow. This causes the poem to oftentimes seem abstract. A sestina is composed of six, six line stanzas. It concludes with one three line stanza. This is called an envoy.

What is a sestina? …continued A sestina is traditionally an unrhymed form of poetry. The rhyming effect is replaced by the use of six words that each recur in each stanza. These words are always at the end of each line of the six line stanza. They appear in a specific order. The opening stanza presents the original order (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) Line 1 of the second stanza begins with word 6 of the preceding stanza, the second line ends with 1, the third line ends with 5, the fourth line ends with 2, the fifth line ends with 4, and the sixth line ends with 3. This pattern repeats for the remaining five stanzas. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – 6, 1, 5, 2, 4, 3 – 3, 6, 4, 1, 2, 5 … The end words of each of the three lines of the envoy must go in the order 5, 3, 1. In addition, the three lines of the envoy must have the remaining words in the order 2, 4, 6

What is a sestina? …continued The six words that recur in Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sestina” are house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac, and tears. on its string. Birdlike, the almanac hovers half open above the child, hovers above the old grandmother and her teacup full of dark brown tears. She shivers and says she thinks the house feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove. It was to be, says the Marvel Stove. I know what I know, says the almanac. With crayons the child draws a rigid house and a winding pathway. Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears and shows it proudly to the grandmother. But secretly, while the grandmother busies herself about the stove, the little moons fall down like tears from between the pages of the almanac into the flower bed the child has carefully placed in the front of the house. Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house. September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother sits in the kitchen with the child beside the Little Marvel Stove, reading the jokes from the almanac, laughing and talking to hide her tears. She thinks that her equinoctial tears And the rain that bests on the roof of the house Were both foretold by the almanac, But only known to a grandmother. The iron kettle sings on the stove. She cuts some bread and says to the child, It’s time for tea now; but the child is watching the teakettle’s small hard tears dance like mad on the hot black stove, the way the rain must dance on the house. Tidying up, the old grandmother hangs up the clever almanac

The Passing of Time The poem progresses through the seasons. Line 1: “September rain falls on the house.” Lines 23/24: “She [grandmother] shivers and says she thinks the house feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.” Line 37: “Time to plant tears, says the almanac.” Line 7, the use of the word “equinoctial” This is defined as pertaining to an equinox. An equinox is “the time when the sun crosses the plane of the earth’s equator, making night and day of approximately equal length all over the earth…”

The Passing of Time … continued The almanac is a recurring reference to time. The almanac is “an annual publication containing a calendar for the coming year, the times of such events and phenomena as anniversaries, sunrises and sunsets, phases of the moon, tides, etc…” With the almanac being a symbol of time, the controlling nature of time is portrayed in the following lines. Line 9: “were both foretold by the almanac.” Line 18: “hangs up the clever almanac.” Line 26: “I know what I know, says the almanac.” The use of the word “foretold” in line 9 could also be a reference to the idea that history repeats itself, and we are in continuous loops of time.

The Passing of Time … continued The cycle of the sun is also presented in this poem. Line 2: “In the failing light, the old grandmother.” This represents sunset. Line 33: “the little moons fall down like tears.” The falling of the moon implies the sun will be rising. The usage of the plural form of the word moon is a reference to the fact that time is a never-ending cycle that does not stop for anything.

The Innocence of the Child The grandmother is sad, but the child seems unable to realize what is going on. Line 10: “but only known to a grandmother.” This is partly to the fact that the grandmother is trying to preserve his/her innocence. Line 6: “laughing and talking to hide her tears.” Line 31: “But secretly, while the grandmother” The child recognizes that there are tears, he/she just does not know how to interpret them. This is seen in line 29: “puts in a man with buttons like tears.” When he/she shows the picture to the grandmother, they are saying that the tears are recognized, just that they don’t know how to interpret them.

The Innocence of the Child … continued In line 37, the planting of the tears could refer to the fact the child will grow up and loose his/her innocence. There is also a large amount of ambiguity in the characters of this poem. The gender of the child is never mentioned. In line 10 it says “but only known to a grandmother.” This ambiguity allows the poem to apply to everyone.

“Sestina” September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother sits in the kitchen with the child beside the Little Marvel Stove, reading the jokes from the almanac, laughing and talking to hide her tears. She thinks that her equinoctial tears And the rain that bests on the roof of the house Were both foretold by the almanac, But only known to a grandmother. The iron kettle sings on the stove. She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It’s time for tea now; but the child is watching the teakettle’s small hard tears dance like mad on the hot black stove, the way the rain must dance on the house. Tidying up, the old grandmother hangs up the clever almanac on its string. Birdlike, the almanac hovers half open above the child, hovers above the old grandmother and her teacup full of dark brown tears. She shivers and says she thinks the house feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove. I know what I know, says the almanac. With crayons the child draws a rigid house and a winding pathway. Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears and shows it proudly to the grandmother. But secretly, while the grandmother busies herself about the stove, the little moons fall down like tears from between the pages of the almanac into the flower bed the child has carefully placed in the front of the house. Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house.