Linked to dVerse Sestina challenge http://dversepoets.com/2011/09/22/formforall-sestina-and-its-variations/
Torn Anna Montgomery 2011 Oil on Board
(Dedicated to A.S. Byatt, all quotes are from her lips or her books, some of the poem comes from an Artist Statement I wrote for a solo show in 2005)
Whistler (click to hear the poem read)
Her ‘greatest terror which is simply domesticity’ with its denial of liberty
Struggling with feminism: ‘their language, like their bodies, was a dreadful hybrid’
Tyranny was a death sentence, via lethal injection, to her volition
For one who’s ‘passionately interested in language’, her display monumentally erudite
An engagement in the broader world, in an expansive psyche
Within her I recognize genius, incandescent purpose, need, here is my encomia
Prizes line up to offer formal encomia
Each reinforcing and elaborating her intellectual liberty
‘I like to write about people who think, to whom thinking is as important and exciting (and painful) as sex or eating’ in full embrace of psyche
Admitting ‘writing is always so dangerous. It’s very destructive.’ a paradoxical hybrid
A concatenation of zoology, myth, dystopia, psychology, art, politics, ethics truly erudite
Displaying all the passions of mind within her volition
‘She would give anything for a child and had duly given birth to a monster’, this volition
A half-hedgehog half-boy, an ugly creature, hardly her desired encomia
Whom she fed just the same, coddled, and loved for his mind, agile and erudite
Suckling on, then weaned, speaking the half-breed language of liberty
Embracing his role as an evolutionary hybrid
Evolving, Eros to Psyche
‘Structures of authority, of persecution, of hierarchy’ excised from the psyche
All these things ‘which led to oppression’ in a great caving of volition
Were cast aside, power a twisted, engineered hybrid
He’s ‘a naturally pessimistic animal’ leery of encomia
Who set out into the world to define his liberty
Circumnavigating, investigating, experiencing all distilled to become more erudite
Encountering Whistlers, bird women, their ‘feather words and skin words grown into each other’ his sight is erudite
Singing and whistling in a cacophony emitting from the dual psyche
They had been banished, pariah, for their desire and seizing of liberty
Each act of will now a strained volition
‘We wanted the speed and danger of the wind’ the Artic Tern sang our encomia
Twinning dualities longing to be whole or at least embrace multiplicity, no vile hybrid
I hear this echo in in my painting language, a hybrid
Where I spin ambiguity and chaos in a sphere of erudite
Possibilities, pluralism, and paradox not garnering encomia
But pain, confusion, a language unclear, but of the psyche
Birthed from my own volition
An unshackled liberty
Encomium is not a purpose for art, it is a bastard hybrid
Liberty oppressed to the sick purpose of an erudite
Psyche that panders to ambition’s deadly volition
Chromapoetica 
Anna, I knew you would take to this form like a bird to flight. And you picked such hideously hard keywords, yet they told your story so fluently. Your tornada is memorable and succinct and shows how well you chose. You push the envelope with the length of line in a few spots, but not without purpose, and for a sestina written so quickly, almost ex tempore, it’s incredibly coherent and cohesive. That was about the form–and I’m sure Gay can elaborate even better about it than I can–now about the poem–it’s one of my favorites of yours instantly. The way you’ve used your subject’s words to illuminate her, the world and your own ideas is masterly. I feel that I know more about each of you, that I even know more about myself. Your final full stanza is shining with clarity. The encomia may be few and far between from the great outside, but I am full of them. (and I very much like the painting Torn, as well. I just feel it *is* torn, from the interior or in itself, I can’t say, but I like it.)
Thank you Joy, I pick the words then write the tornada at the end like any poem (maybe on the third one I’ll learn to write it first with simpler words but I like the heady feeling of potential doom :)). Yes, I too was concerned where I really pushed the lines but I couldn’t see it any other way so I stretched where I needed room in the form. I’m so happy to hear that the quotes worked I went back and forth but I wanted to hear her in my words (if that makes any sense – it does more in adopting style in painting to make a tribute to another artist). It’s wonderful you gained some self-knowledge (makes me quite happy)! A.S. Byatt has struggled her entire writing career, despite all her accolades, with being derided as pedantic or for her intellectual prowess (how dare she be a brilliant woman) when I think she’s just in love with the world and wants to share it. She’s 75 so her academic life and subsequent career, that began in the 60’s, was tainted by a misogyny that I hope has finally died.
how do you do it, anna? although i (fireblossom) wrote one sestina, i pretty much go cross-eyed at the slightest attempt. you’ve taken a fine subject and given it real bite.
Thanks, I’m scrappy like that, I don’t like to be beaten (also I promised myself ice cream if I did it :)).
I think you did a marvelous job with this style. Lots of great imagery here. Though your keywords seem like they would be difficult to work with, they are definitely unique and memorable. Love the tornada.
Thank you, I’m glad you found it unique; I try to be original. Yeah, the tornada is kind of my internal artist statement :).
I often wonder if I have an education when I read your work. I have spent a fair amount of time with this poem now and perhaps..(maybe.not sure..maybe) I’m prepared to comment on it. I listened to the read, I read it myself, thrice, and I did know all the words and their meanings (I had some good teachers re vocabulary), but critical thinking is harder than digesting words and my first and chief obstacle is I hadn’t read (nor even knew of the subject…I regret this now as I have looked her up and read about her. She is inspired by writers whom I do know and do admire and do think guided my thoughts about writing, about poetry, about aesthetics, and about art.)
I have no issues with the length of lines. I know the “agreed upon standard” is decasyllabic possibly even iambic pent, but today we’re dealing with taking the form and making it ours. I think Dame Antonia would approve. But if you take the time to read Hardboiled Poem you’ll see some really long lines and admire it for its very modernity and inventiveness. It is a polar opposite poem to yours and yet were Mr.Keenan to read yours, I think he would find it very much to his liking, to his sensibilities as well.
But your poem, as Joy points out so eloquently, is far more than an introduction to a brilliant writer, a feminist of her generation, a rebel of her time. It is also a work of art in itself, insinuating yourself through the body and the repetitions of this piece you align your own imagination with hers so that it becomes like a double helix of feminine poetry, hailing brilliance, and liberation.
Another fine work of art!
Gosh Gay, I appreciate the work that you did to investigate Dame Antonia. I’ve read almost everything she’s written, along with most of Iris Murdoch, her mentor and friend (and a philosopher). They are writers that gave me permission to be myself and a writer, for which I am eternally grateful. I highly recommend A.S. Byatt’s Possession, words of praise all fall short. It won the Booker Prize.
Thank you for the attention, I tend to want my poems to offer something on each rereading so I pack them full of goodies (I’m a giver at heart). I’m joyous that you feel the poem became more than the tribute as I do deeply respect and admire her and wanted to create something fitting for her that could stand on its own feet.
I must echo earlier comments when I wonder if I actually went to college and graduated when I read your words, haha. This is intense work, demanding attention and tenacity. Very interesting how you worked the form with such tough words.
Thank you Gene, I appreciate your tenacity in engaging it. The only other sestina I’ve written was with earth, impervious, loam, barren, withered, and harrow. We’ll see if I learn for the third try :).
Wow, the poem was not only brilliantly done it seemed like you were speaking at me, not just cause you used a word in my pen name either, 🙂 Just wonderfully done, I think I’m going to have to research A.S. Byatt, I can’t tell you how in-tune the words hit me here- anyhow, thanks for the read, it really is wonderfully done
Thanks for the feedback, I look forward to reading your poem.
I am impressed. Piece of art. Brava!
Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say, I reread your poem (I commented in August).
Great usage of your words and the authors quotes. I really liked this
Thank you Leah.
Oh my gosh, such a power ending, really true, dangerous. So interesting. Amazing how you managed with “encomia.”
Thank you, I’m glad the ending spoke to you and that the poem provided some food for thought. I do like a good challenge (re: encomia, a word new to me).
Wow is right. I too echo the feeling of wondering if I really did the college days, though your Sestina also transported me back to the philosophy classes and a Women’s History class (which was not a positive experience due to the instructor. She was probably the most anti-feminist presenter, mixed with a major amount of psychosis- literally. She actually disappeared from the faculty list the following semester. Anyhow… I probably picked up more here in your poem than the entire semester.)
But back to this… I too was not familiar with your subject, though I definitely will be finding out more, so felt at a loss in the beginning. You have expressed so much beyond the words of this piece by using quotes of her words, then adding your own voice beyond that. I am in awe of your choice of end words though they worked very well in this.
Masterful voice here.
Sorry to hear about your Women’s History course, it’s tragic when the joy of learning is eclipsed by a horrible Professor. Any exploration of A.S. Byatt’s work will provide rich rewards and Possession is a good book to start with (it stands alone unlike the four part Frederica series which begins with The Virgin in the Garden, which I also recommend if you find you respond to her as a writer). Thank you very much for your kind compliment.
Some people are afraid to use big words in poetry. You are not one of these people. A good poem overall, and clever.
Thank you very much.
hullo. i also read these yesterday
http://www.valpo.edu/vpr/v12n1/v12n1poetry/stallingsthree.php
which are very different to yours but also with psyche
sestinas feel plaited to me, woven, you keep the focus moving
so they do not get knotted =).
Thanks for the link, Janet, the first of the three poems reminded me immediately of Till We Have Faces the retelling of the Eros and Psyche myth by C.S. Lewis. I agree with you about sestinas and until I had to write one I grumbled through reading them. This is only my second so I am learning how to keep the focus moving; I’m glad this one didn’t knot :).
At one time – back in the 6th century AD — Poetry had a stranglehold on Ireland: Poets had proliferated like weeds, taking over every court, demanding every sou of tribute, threatening to satire to hell any lord foolish enough to refuse their services. They almost got their asses thrown out of Ireland at the Council of Drumceatt, but St. Columba made his only reappearance back to his exiled Ireland while he lived (he had to be rowed there facing the other way). There he said: “Humans of dust, you are nothing but a story. How you get your living or your clothing is your story. I urge you to keep the bards among you, for it is better to buy the enduring story than a fleeting one.” The bardic class was downsized but retained, and it is one of the reasons that the oral literature of the old Celts survived. (Bards became monks became scribes.) Long story short, fame — encomium – as you put it, never serves an artist well, rendering art neither for art nor God’s sake but money’s — and we all know what happens to something when a lot of money gets dumped on it. (It stinks, then sinks.) My only reading of Byatt was Possession, but it gives me ample view of your praise of Byatt’s view of ownership and independence between lovers, and the possession one has of one’s work, or the world has of it it. Again, for art’s sake it’s all fluid freedom — eros swimming free inside creative psyche, as you say: the outrage of the independent self in a Matrix of digitially-enhanced similitude. You assay well; the sestina form does not war with the effort. – Brendan
Yes, possession is one of my major concerns in art and I have had odd responses from people from screaming at me to storming out of the gallery. I think there’s a bizarre desire that clouds art once possession of the object is possible. People read all sorts of power into it and don’t like it when the artist refuses to participate in that definition of possession. You may own an object that was created by me but it means nothing about the meaning of the work, its purpose in the world, nor confers any status upon you. The best collectors don’t want to own a piece of the artist or horde treasure but are deeply in love with life and see art as a reflection of that love and wonder, not an extension of their ego. Just as the true artists want to engage life through art, to give to others what they are capable of giving while retaining that ‘fluid freedom’ you so eloquently speak of that extends fully into our relationships with others where we can never ‘possess’ another human being. Thank you, Brendan.
You probably saw that documentary “Herb and Dorothy,” about the Vogels, this quite humble pair who, on the combined salaries of a mailman and librarian, manage to collect some 5,000 pieces of minimalist art (they only thing they could afford, minimalism having far less currency than other styles of art between the 60s and the ’00s). They ended up giving the collection — valued in the millions — free to the National Gallery of Art, since that institution charged nothing for admittance by the public. Those two just loved art: collected it greedily and then gave it all away. Poetry has the immense value of not being worth the paper we don’t write it on, anymore. Love is like that, too …
Yes, the Vogels are an inspiration and the giving continues http://herbanddorothy.com/. Love and poetry, so very true.
An intense and challenging read. The vocabulary seemed to make me stumble at times (I know to have a dictionary handy when I read your work…I guess it’s been too long since I graduated from college).
You did a wonderful job personalizing the sestina into your own unique style. Kudos!
Thank you Laurie, the vocabulary in my poetry serves several functions: specificity, I don’t intend to engage in sesquipedalianism; to keep the reader paying attention; to avoid long trod pathways in the mind of the reader (I’ve been down this road before and I know where it’s going) so that you are always in a state of anticipating what comes next instead of being in the moment; I love language and sometimes become besotted with particular words and inflict them on everyone assuming you’ll all feel the same way (sorry when this happens and you don’t). I deeply appreciate that you’re willing to engage the work and my style.
I think it’s a wonderful tool; to use vocabulary to keep the reader in the moment. I appreciate your style and truly enjoy learning from you.
Thank you Laurie :).
yes there is nothing wrong with poetry which stretches both ideas and vocabulary. i think stretchiness and savouring the taste and colour of language are a good part of why we read and write poetry =).
Oh, stretchiness, fun!
honestly anna – you seem to know 30 % more words than the average american…i think your writing is just awesome and what an intriguing sestina this is..
Thanks Claudia, you’ve brightened my day with your lovely self :)!
Inviting you once more to pay me a visit– you might like my meditative poems/responses to Rilke. I admire the density of your language but at times feel that it can become its own trap in a sense– some concretions and conveying your meaning through the image interspersed with abstraction might make your work more accessible, if that is important to you. Have you read Tess Gallagher? xxj http://parolavivace.blogspot.com . you might be interested that I hadn’t read the other comments before posting this one. Words are very powerful; they are to be cherished for their beauty and meanings. I favor the cardinal, the mockingbird, rather than the peacock, I’m afraid.
I’ve only read one of Tess Gallagher’s poems, I’ll have to look into her more thoroughly, thanks again for the suggestion.
Hi Anna,
You write with such rich language, the language itself portrays this portrait you’ve created.
I am in awe of you. I haven’t even brought myself to the point of trying to write in this form.
But you seem to be well on the way to making it your own.
I truly enjoyed this!
Thank you 🙂
~deb
Thank you Debbie, I think you might enjoy writing a sestina, I didn’t think I would but I did :). Applying language like paint in an impasto technique, I like how you’ve said it, and I do admire and use it in painting.
It can be a dizzying experience reading your work. First the assault of new words, then the assault of images and interesting new metaphors. I always feel like a foolish tourist who brought no map or guide, and don’t speak much the language.
I have not read A.S. Byatt’s work, but I think I shall be looking for her work. I’m sure when I read her work, I shall be thinking of this poem too.
Absolutely appreciated and enjoyed your reading too.
Thank you, I hope the reading provided some additional orientation, I’m still oscillating on the notes and feel that they often serve as a road map or phrase book. I always appreciate you take the time to visit and I hope you do read A.S. Byatt.
Wow, what a tour de force! With this use of language, you have taken the form somewhere new and unexpected. It was good to hear you read it, too; helped my understanding.
Thank you Rosemary, I’m so glad you appreciated the language and stretching of form (easier when you’re first learning the form I think :)).
“Her ‘greatest terror which is simply domesticity’ “….Always!!…Byatt, wow…been a favourite since I read ‘Possession’ as a teenager…I so loved this poem…a small simple and true statement from me!
Thank you and for the article. How wonderful you know and appreciate her! Always lovely to have you visit.
striking wording, bravo, powerful entry.
🙂
Thank you, I enjoyed the challenge of this form.
Wow! Would you believe that just this morning I was thinking how I needed to be more encomiastic? … … me neither.
Faabulous writing! Of course, you must consider that compliment as having come from a redneck who did not go to college.
I was wondering about you this morning. Seems like I hadn’t seen a poem form you for a few weeks. Now that I think about it, it probably was exactly two weeks ago. I forget stuff.
Anyway, I don’t think you’ve seen the series I’m posting. This is part two, and it contains a link to part one, if you’re interested.
http://charleslmashburn.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/two-yearning-heart/
Charles! I’ve been coming to the rally late (this week I got the invite before the next week so I’m here and as you can see I’ve been writing away :)). Thank you for the wonderful laugh! I will read both of your poems very soon.
very deep and powerful rambling.
🙂
Thank you Morning, I will be by to read yours soon.
I need more time with this piece. I’ve never studied poetry so I really have no idea what style it is or how it was constructed. However; the strength of the vocabulary and several of the lines are truly gripping. I wish that I could have a copy to print and read so that I could further work through this. I really loved it and I believe there is a lot to be learned here. Thank you. I need to think on it a bit longer,
Sorry about that, here are links to the dVerse explanation of a Sestina that will help http://dversepoets.com/2011/08/25/formforall-sestina/ and http://dversepoets.com/2011/09/22/formforall-sestina-and-its-variations/. Thank you for your engagement and kind compliment!
wow what a creative piece ….it stretched me but I did enjoy it ….thanks for the mental stimuli and great poem x
Thanks for stretching with me Kez; I enjoy mental stimuli too!
Great poem and interesting way of incorporating the writers who influence you into your work.
Here is my entry:
http://jackedwardspoetry.blogspot.com/2011/10/everyone.html
Thanks Jack and for letting me know it’s National Poetry Day in the UK!
This is amazing and I could not write like this. It is simple mind blowing how you can take these words and turn them into such a lovely piece of poetry such a well done job on this
http://gatelesspassage.com/2011/10/05/today%e2%80%99s-feelings/
Thank you, I deeply appreciate your continuing visits and kind encouragement.
I read this piece of art thrice :O.. I love the usage of words. I don’t really have the patience to spend time over long posts but this was a different experience. I loved the whistler. Crisp and clear!
Keep ’em coming!! I get into a poet’s shoes every blue moon and this month’s seen 2 of them :D.
I’d love to read more from you!!
—
RoHiT
Thank you, how nice to meet you. I’m honored you read it through three times. I am behind on my Rally reading but will come by to read your poem soon. Please come back to read more poetry :).
some interesting concept
1) Struggling with feminism – when feminism when first ame out, you didn’t struggle you just did
2) …give anything…for a child…A half-hedgehog half-boy, an ugly creature, – DAYUMMMM who is this person?
3) , bird women – their whistles and feathers wow
4) Encomium is not a purpose for art, it is a bastard hybrid – tell that to the politicians
1) I could see that being the case, I was born in 1973 so I have greatly benefited from the generations that came before me.
2) Ha, it’s from a fairy tale in one of A.S. Byatt’s book that I appropriated to make my own points (I think he first appears in tales by the brothers Grimm).
3) Thanks!
4) You know, they never ask for my opinion 🙂 – I suppose I could write them a letter.
Thanks for reading another poem; I greatly appreciate it.
A real achievement in this piece was its flow and grace for its contents, actually so well I didn’t really feel a form. A real challenge with the language you chose to work with and it is quite impressive. ~ Rose
Thank you, I think that’s is the great challenge of a sestina. I appreciate your feedback on the form very much.
‘She would give anything for a child and had duly given birth to a monster’, this volition
A half-hedgehog half-boy, an ugly creature, hardly her desired encomia
Whom she fed just the same, coddled, and loved for his mind, agile and erudite
Suckling on, then weaned, speaking the half-breed language of liberty
Embracing his role as an evolutionary hybrid
Evolving, Eros to Psyche’
– I utterly adore this.
Thank you, there are many layers of meaning in that stanza, personal and universal. Very nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too!
This is a brilliant piece of work, well written i enjoyed reading it very much 🙂
Thank you Jeanie, what a wonderful comment. I like your new avatar :).
Gorgeous. I am an enormous fan of Byatt’s work, and I really appreciate the way you have interwoven her ideas and some of her magical prose with your own both to illuminate and comment on the issues most dear to her characters – liberty, family, individuality.
Thank you, always wonderful to meet another deep appreciator of her work. So glad you clearly saw the interweaving of themes. I look forward to reading your work.