Elizabeth Bishop: Sestina

怀抱花朵的孩子

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 beats 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.

怀抱花朵的孩子

Note:
      
     I've just read this poem delightedly, I found it very interesting and subtle.The almanac, the old grandmother, The child, the house, and the the little moons, all of these have a mysterious atmosphere.

      Sestina
      One of the most difficult and complex of the various French forms, the sestina is a poem consisting of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy. It makes no use of the refrain. This form is usually unrhymed, the effect of rhyme being taken over by a fixed pattern of end-words which demands that these end-words in each stanza be the same, though arranged in a different sequence each time.
      
      If we take 1-2-3-5-6 to represent the end-words of the first stanza, then the first line of the second stanza must end with 6 (the last end-word used in the preceding stanza), the second with 1, the third with 5, the fourth with 2, the fifth with 4, the sixth with 3--and so to the next stanza. The order of the first three stanzas, for instance, would be: 1-2-3-4-5-6; 6-1-5-2-4-3; 3-6-4-1-2-5. The conclusion, or envoy, of three lines must use as end-words 5-3-1, these being the final end-words, in the same sequence, of the sixth stanza. But the poet must exercise even greater ingenuity than all this, since buried in each line of the envoy must appear the other three end-words, 2-6.

      Thus so highly artificial a pattern affords a form which, for most poets, can never prove anything more than a poetic exercise. Yet it has been practiced with success in English by Swinburne, Kipling, and Auden.

[ 本帖最后由 怀抱花朵的孩子 于 2006-6-12 18:03 编辑 ]

mu

I'm fond of Sestina!!! though it's the first time I read Elizabeth Bishop's poems.

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother

an excellent atmosphere the poet gave us,a rainy night of one unnameable September,all of the vision was mysterious and symbolized.

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.

"a man with buttons like tears",very..odd feeling,oh! and the almanac!

怀抱花朵的孩子

原帖由 牧场看守人 于 2006-6-12 19:28 发表
I'm fond of Sestina!!! though it's the first time I read Elizabeth Bishop's poems.



an excellent atmosphere the poet gave us,a rainy night of one unnameable September,all of the vision was my ...

Here  Elizabeth Bishop give us a very interesting story, I say it's a story because it give me a strong feeling of process. Time is a very important problem for Literature especially for poem. Maybe we can retell this story in prose, but I feel there lurks sth more important which the poet want to express, I don't know. Maybe we should peruse it more carefully and more patiently.

If we consider about the strict formal demand of Sestina. We'll have to admit it a very very splendid masterpiece.

[ 本帖最后由 怀抱花朵的孩子 于 2006-6-13 01:44 编辑 ]