1. Sestina
Elizabeth Bishop

2. Highly personal poem inspired by a childhood memory – her recollection of the period following her mother’s permanent institutionalism
Opening stanza refers to September (dying year), evening (dying day) and rain – immediately evoking a sense of gloom.

3. Stove, jokes, laughing- sense of warmth and cosy domesticity
Closing line in stanza 1 reinforces the sense of sadness with which the poem opens
The sense of despondency we feel in the opening stanza pervades the entire poem

4. Stanza Two Presents us with the thoughts of the grandmother
Towards the end we return to the domestic world as the grandmother prepares tea

5. Stanza Three
In this stanza we see the child’s perspective on the situation
She tries to comprehend her feelings by exploring them through the concrete objects around her.
The reference to the rain underscores the melancholy mood.

6. However, the sense of life going on is conveyed by the image of the grandmother “tidying up”

7. Stanza Four Depicts the almanac in an ominous light as a bird of prey
The child’s consciousness of the sorrow that envelopes the house is reflected in the manner in which she sees so much around her in terms of tears
Again, however, we see domestic activity continuing

8. Stanza Five Surreal quality
Child imagines objects around her coming to life and engaging in conversation.
Stove suggests inevitability of situation
House- suggests desire for stable home life
Man – father she never knew

9. Stanza Six
While there are tears everywhere in this poem, the child herself never cries
Here we see the child’s efforts to create an ideal home within the realms of her imagination

10. Final Three Lines
The final three lines suggest that sorrow will be a growing feature of the child’s future life.
The sense of life going on amidst sorrow and loss is conveyed by the grandmother continuing to hide her grief by singing

11. The ‘inscrutable’ nature of the drawing points to the child’s on-going difficulties in coming to terms with the strange nature of her home life- a life without a father and mother.

12. SESTINA
The sestina is a challenging form in which, rather than simply rhyming, the actual line-ending words are repeated in successive stanzas in a designated rotating order. A sestina consists of six six-line stanzas, concluding with a three-line “envoi” which incorporates all the line-ending words, some hidden inside the closing lines. The prescribed pattern for using the six line-ending words is:

13. 1st stanza nd stanza rd stanza th stanza th stanza th stanza envoi