The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics opens its entry describing the form with repeated end words for all six lines though in varying order across six stanzas as well other rules that depend on the particular approach to the sestina with “The most complicated of the verseforms initiated by the troubadours.” The entry goes on to quote Ezra Pound describing the sestina as “a form like a thin sheet of flame, folding and infolding upon itself.” Outside of “thin,” there would not seem much overlap between this French poetic form imported into English and the French speaking Canadian singer who will be selling out her shows again at Caesars Palace starting next year.

A number of poets have used the sestina in English including Pound, Swinburn, Auden and James Merrill. I admit that I am not as familiar with the poetry of Gregory Sherl. But he is the first poet I know of to attempt a sestina not only dedicated to Celine Dion, but also the narrative and imagery are infused with the singer. Here is the opening stanza:

I tell you about the little heart that beats in the dead.
I am not dead you say. I am not dead so my heart
beats big you say. My heart beats like a Sony Walkman,
big, duh. My heart is a teenage girl’s eyes, it’s 1998
and Leo will hold on, won’t hold on — the ship is not a little
heart — it’s like God will sink this ship. Why not? This ship beats

Sorry, because of enjambment, I interrupt in the middle of the sentence but for the sake of the form you need all six end words. You can read the rest of “Sestina for Your Dead Heart for Celine Dion” here.

(Photo: Sarah Gerke)