9th Grade Recommended Reading List: "Sestina" by Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop's "Sestina" uses the repetition that is part the poem's form to obscure an undercurrent of sadness in her characters' lives (etext found here).
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. almanac
    an annual publication including weather forecasts
    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.
  2. equinoctial
    relating to when the lengths of night and day are equal
    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.
    Another definition of "equinoctial" is "a violent windstorm and rainstorm held to occur at or near the time of the equinox"--while the grandmother's tears are not violent (because she is trying to hide them), the image of wind and rain emphasizes her struggle to avoid affecting her grandchild with her sadness. The term also suggests that her tears fall regularly in September, perhaps on the anniversary of a loved one's death.
  3. foretell
    make a prediction about
    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.
  4. tidy
    put in order
    Tidying up, the old grandmother
    hangs up the clever almanac
    on its string.
    The almanac is tied to a string and hangs. This is a shaky form of tidiness, since the string can break from the weight of the almanac. But this image suggests the shaky nature of the order that the grandmother tries to create in the house. No matter what she does, things will happen that are out of her control. She can try to read about them in advance in an almanac, but she can't prevent life or death.
  5. clever
    mentally quick and resourceful
    Tidying up, the old grandmother
    hangs up the clever almanac
    The use of the adjective "clever" personifies the almanac. Although the next line compares it to a bird, the fifth stanza shows it having a conversation with the stove.
  6. hover
    hang in the air; fly or be suspended above
    Birdlike, the almanac
    hovers half open above the child,
    hovers above the old grandmother
    and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
    The almanac is physically hovering in the air above the child and the grandmother, but what is also hovering in the air is the absence of the man in the child's picture. The grandmother's sadness also hovers about the child, but the child, busy with drawing, is as unaware of the sadness as of the almanac.
  7. shiver
    shake, as from cold
    She shivers and says she thinks the house
    feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.
  8. rigid
    fixed and unmoving
    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.
    The child's drawing of the house could be seen as rigid because of the use of simple, straight lines (which contrast with the curvy ones used for the winding pathway). The phrase "rigid house" could also refer to the child's narrow view of life, which sees more flowers than tears.
  9. winding
    marked by repeated turns and bends
    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.
  10. careful
    cautiously attentive
    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.
  11. marvelous
    being or having the character of a miracle
    Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
    The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
    and the child draws another inscrutable house.
  12. inscrutable
    difficult or impossible to understand
    Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
    The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
    and the child draws another inscrutable house.
  13. sestet
    a group of six lines of verse
    "Sestina"
    A sestet is a stanza of 6 lines (usually the last of a fourteen line sonnet). A sestina is an entire poem made up of 6 sestets and a three-line closing stanza that repeats the end words of the first stanza throughout. Notice how the repeated words focus on images of tears, which emphasize the underlying mood of the poem, despite the jokes in the almanac and the crayon drawing of a child.
Created on Sat Jun 08 00:00:21 EDT 2013 (updated Wed Oct 04 16:46:18 EDT 2017)

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