Leonard Kress
Why I Keep Writing Sestinas The first sestina was by the Troubador poet Arnaut Daniel and immediately imitated by a host of others, including Dante in his "Stony Lady, Pietra." Try not to focus on the monotony of the six or seven-fold repetition, it's just right for a song of mourning, dolorous, despairing, melancholy--a morning spent with a stubbornly forlorn poet who thinks his words deserve repeating, which makes him (or her) no more than an imitation of the rest of us, who think our own monotonous lives deserve airing. We've all been betrayed by that lady or that man, or else we've been that lady who betrays. What's so special about your mourning over this or that? It's all monochromatic, monotone, without inflection, at least that's what some poets would have you believe-and inimitable once their special touch makes it worth repeating. And, of course, repeating over and over. If you think this is about some lady, well, you're mistaken. I am loathe to imitate anyone, by God, and when I arise each morning it's not with the intent to sound like a medieval poet "with a wailing and immoveable monotony," As though monogamous and monotonous were homophones, a sentiment oft repeated since the earliest troubadour poets began to obsess over cold-hearted ladies like Pietra. Knowing there's never a morning when they'd awake side by side imitating lovers, as if intimate and imitate were also homophones. If something's monotonous, at first (to cite a Zen saying) then try it all morning: what seems at first mere repetition will turn profound. Tell that to the stony lady and perhaps she'll forgive you for being a poet. Leonard Kress has published fiction and poetry in Massachusetts Review, Iowa Review, Crab Orchard Review, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, etc. His recent collections are The Orpheus Complex, Thirteens, and Braids & Other Sestinas. He teaches philosophy, religion, and creative writing at Owens College in Ohio and edits creative non-fiction for Artful Dodge.
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