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beginning.
The end and the beginning, however, and interconnected, and they overlap. They form a loop, a cycle, and as one ends another begins, and everything comes to completion. The sestina is an especially apt form for this, since, as Spanos points out, sestinas create "easily perceived and formally perfect unity; reassuring and therefore pleasing." She goes on to explain that in each stanza, the previous one is taken apart and put back together differently, continually being deconstructed and renewed. Considering this, the form itself and its properties can become a symbol for the cycle of decline and ascension that Bishop creates in "Sestina." Marilyn Krysl also writes of not only the cyclical nature of sestinas, but also of a rise and fall and the link formed by repetition as a link between polar moments which "fuels a peculiarly intoxicating tension (8)." In Bishop's Sestina especially we can see this interaction between opposites. Youth and age, beginning and ending, the everyday and the mystical, and inside and outside are all tensions that can be felt in Bishop's lines. As the repetition links them, the changing sequence of meanings of the repeated phrases and moves the poem forward.

There have been arguments made that sestinas, because of their complex scheme of repetition, are merely a good technical exercise and incapable of expressing real organic feeling. While that is probably true to a certain extent, Bishop's "Sestina" is a great example of how effective it can be if worked skillfully and creatively enough. The argument about sestinas being "cold calculation" collapses in the light of "Sestina" because the roundness and regularity of the form reinforce the natural cycles that form the basis that the poem operates on.
Sestinas are generally considered to be one of the most difficult of traditional forms. In this case, though, its peculiarities are used to achieve the maximum fullness of meaning. Its tendency towards symbolism and ability to construct and shape it are essential to this poem, and are used to great effect. The even, complete, and cyclical nature of the form is also completely appropriate for the subject, yet following the tradition of the oldest sestinas by Petrarch and Dante, it is an emblematic poem, which works more beneath the surface to achieve its goal of illustrating the loop that is all of nature, centered in the microcosm of one grandmother's kitchen.

Works Consulted.

Davidson, F.J.A. "The Origin of the Sestina." Modern Language Notes. Vol 25, No. 1. (Jan., 1910) pp 18-20.

Lennard, John. The Poetry Handbook. Oxford University Press, NY. 1996.

Spanos, Margaret. "The Sestina: An Exploration of the Dynamics of Poetic Structure." Speculum. Vol. 53, No. 3. (Jul., 1978), pp. 545-557.

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