School-Sestina

here is my *revised* sestina, hope you like it, sorry if it sucks and you hate it.

SCHOOL

Everyday I traipse through school.
Blank faces stare back at my own.
Why do we do the things we do,
And what makes them worth doing at all?
Do the current lessons affect the end?
And what is the point, I often wonder.

What seems to be missing is that of wonder,
A lack of inspiration in this dreary school.
Students wander, searching for the end
Of a school they barely call their own.
Minds, reaching, yearning for it all,
But worksheets and assignments give them nothing to do.

See, students, what they want to do
Is have their minds overcome by wonder,
Not to be bound by all
The useless information of school.
The desire to be left on their own
Is one that cannot be attained, in the end.

Those who believe high school is the end-
All be-all of education would do
Well to let go of their own,
And grasp what can only be held by wonder.
Reality rarely penetrates the bubble of school,
In a way we learn nothing at all.

Between the fact-based know-it-alls
And giddy teachers' pets, I'm at wit's end.
Take me away from this dreadful school
And give me something productive to do.
Take me away to something wonder-
Ful and independent, standing on it's own.

Give me reality to call my own,
I do not request to have it all,
Merely to be intrigued by wonder.
If I were to continue moving toward the end
And have absolutely nothing to do,
My, I would blame it on the blandness of school.

In the end, all I wish
Is to not do life in a school of fish
And have my own style of wonder.




Writing this sestina was not enjoyable, to me, although I'm sure some found it expressing. It felt like I was running out of things to say, six stanzas and a tercet seemed forever while I was writing it. The hardest part was finding new ways to use the end words, you don't want the words to become trite. It takes a certain amount of cleverness to achieve a successful sestina. When I first wrote it, I just wanted to get it done, so my tercet wasn't too strong. Going back and doing the revision brought some freshness to it though, and I reworded it. Also, when we were doing our group reads, my peers pointed out that my diction could use some improvement, so I changed a few words to either create more imagery or just make the poem read a little better. I tried to create a lot of imagery, and make some comparisons throughout, in order to enhance my sestina. Overall, I think it's okay. The revision process helped my sestina, rather than hurt it, of course, and I think mine is successful in its attempt to relay the message that life is more than books and school, which I hope the imagery and comparisons push.