Sestina Elizabeth Bishop

Highly personal poem inspired by a childhood memory – her recollection of the period following her mother’s permanent institutionalism Opening stanza refers to September (dying year), evening (dying day) and rain – immediately evoking a sense of gloom.

Stove, jokes, laughing- sense of warmth and cosy domesticity Closing line in stanza 1 reinforces the sense of sadness with which the poem opens The sense of despondency we feel in the opening stanza pervades the entire poem

Stanza Two Presents us with the thoughts of the grandmother Towards the end we return to the domestic world as the grandmother prepares tea

Stanza Three In this stanza we see the child’s perspective on the situation She tries to comprehend her feelings by exploring them through the concrete objects around her. The reference to the rain underscores the melancholy mood.

However, the sense of life going on is conveyed by the image of the grandmother “tidying up”

Stanza Four Depicts the almanac in an ominous light as a bird of prey The child’s consciousness of the sorrow that envelopes the house is reflected in the manner in which she sees so much around her in terms of tears Again, however, we see domestic activity continuing

Stanza Five Surreal quality Child imagines objects around her coming to life and engaging in conversation. Stove suggests inevitability of situation House- suggests desire for stable home life Man – father she never knew

Stanza Six While there are tears everywhere in this poem, the child herself never cries Here we see the child’s efforts to create an ideal home within the realms of her imagination

Final Three Lines The final three lines suggest that sorrow will be a growing feature of the child’s future life. The sense of life going on amidst sorrow and loss is conveyed by the grandmother continuing to hide her grief by singing

The ‘inscrutable’ nature of the drawing points to the child’s on-going difficulties in coming to terms with the strange nature of her home life- a life without a father and mother.

SESTINA The sestina is a challenging form in which, rather than simply rhyming, the actual line-ending words are repeated in successive stanzas in a designated rotating order. A sestina consists of six six-line stanzas, concluding with a three-line “envoi” which incorporates all the line-ending words, some hidden inside the closing lines. The prescribed pattern for using the six line-ending words is:

1st stanza 1 2 3 4 5 6 2nd stanza 6 1 5 2 4 3 3rd stanza 3 6 4 1 2 5 4th stanza 5 3 2 6 1 4 5th stanza 4 5 1 3 6 2 6th stanza 2 4 6 5 3 1 envoi 2--5 4--3 6--1