The Book of Yolek

A sestina consists of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy (which can also be called a tercet). Sestinas are usually unrhymed. They create their effect through a complex pattern of repetition of end-words (or terminal words). The end-words in each stanza must be the same, but in each stanza they are arranged in a different sequence. If the end-words of the first stanza are represented as 1-2-3-4-5-6, then the first line of the second stanza must end with 6 (the last end-word in the preceding stanza). The pattern continues as follows: the second line of the second stanza must end with 1, the third with 5, the fourth with 2, the fifth with 4, the sixth with 3. This scheme continues through to the sixth stanza. The end-words of the first three stanzas can therefore be presented as 1-2-3-4-5-6; 6-1-5-2-4-3; 3-6-4-1-2-5. In the three-line envoy, the pattern is usually 5-3-1 or 1-3-5, which are the end-words of the sixth stanza. Each line of the envoy contains two of the six end-words from the preceding stanzas, which means that all six of the end-words appear in the envoy.

In “The Book of Yolek,” the six terminal words, as they appear in Stanza 1, are “meal,” “walk,” “to,” “home,” “camp,” and “day.