These instructions will expand a sestina form poem from within a single word as
follows:
Choose a five-letter Source Word. Choose six line-ending letters and order them
from one to six. Pair up the line ending words as follows into pairs of first
and last letters:
Line ending Word
First letter
Last letter
Word 1
6[th]
1st
Word 2
5[th]
2nd
Word 3
2[nd]
3rd
Word 4
4[th]
4th
Word 5
3[rd]
5th
Word 6
1[st]
6th
Assemble line-ending words from the conditions arrayed in the above table. The
first line ending word must be six letters long, though all subsequent words
may be of any length. Expand the source word tautogrammatically to produce the
first line. Each word in this line must be six letters long and must each end
with the first letter of each line ending word in their original order.
Expand each word in the line that has just been produced in the same
tautogrammatic manner in order of their appearance. Each line must be six words
long. The end letters of each word must be the first letter of each line-ending
word. Since each of these five lines will produce the next stanzas in the
sestina, the ordering of word-ending letters must be the same as the ordering
of the line-ending words in each subsequent stanza. The following diagram will
clarify this situation:
Line
End Letter Sequence
1 [produced from first expansion]
[1-itself]23456
2
615243
3
364125
4
532614
5
451362
6
246531
Once this first stanza is assembled, expand each new line into the five further
stanzas tautogrammatically. In this operation, each word becomes one line of
each stanza. Once this is complete, the tercet will be a straight repetition of
the sestina's first three lines.
This can be combined with a syllabic or word-amount constraint. Alexandrines
and a limitation to 6 words per line are two examples which come to mind at the
moment.
The title must follow the following form:
"Expanding on a(n) [INSERT SOURCE WORD HERE] Sestina"
[LINE 2]
Brush last ink, support trim-edged road
Overlooking lushness, denser
Rehashing half-irritated zones of movement, elsewhere smoothing
Irate lone lines under some test, related as these insomniac noises gently
Nothing on its steel eave
Gleaned emotions notate the last yawns
[LINE3]
On rare days it never abates, rotates, yawns
Driving if nothing neared road
Dripping over no eave
If noises get rehashed an iron node ends denser
The hefty reading eased as doubles idling, nodding gently
Yesterday, a window neared smoothing
[LINE 4]
Resting erratically, something tried smoothing
Easing various elements, rough yawns
But, early aches rehash into nothing gently
After former end's road
The extra silt tends errors, denser
Elsewhere, a versatile eave
[LINE 5]
Erratically masked over the Eave
Just one keeps easily smoothing
Ends never denser
Curled rhizomes after zone yawns
The empty altered road
Strange moments of other things hover in noise gently
[LINE 6]
Drab acting needs cropping in notes gently
Every last supporting entrance was here, equally rusted eave
Negate early vaunts erasing road
So, every night simple effortless smoothing
Eunoia visits, every relay yawns
Reruns offer actions, denser
