a silly sestina

Someone on BigTent Poetry was talking about a prompt to write a canzone – an even more complex form than the sestina.  This reminded me of this poem, written to let off steam when in the painful throes of an assignment to write Villanelle, Pantoum, Sestina and Sonnet. 

 

A SILLY SESTINA in which the keywords are all anagrams of each other

An art, a madness, poetry –
lines of words in symmetry. Type or
write in best handwriting. Check re typos.
Poets can be amateur or yet pro,
who commit verbal hari-kiri, prey to
wilful publishers who pronounce: ‘yep, rot.’

Much that’s written cries out ‘Yep. Rot.’
An evil calumny on poetry
that upsets poets prey to
problems of a verbal type or
tantrums, mental crises. Even yet, pros
can’t be fagged to check re typos.

Typesetters used to be guilty re typos,
resulting in print – you’ve guessed it – yep, rot.
Nowadays computers make light work, yet pro
or amateur slips up in poetry
sometimes when they write or type or
even read aloud, they’re prey to

make mistakes, miss words or letters, prey to
be misunderstood by critics re typos,
condemning poems of a certain type or
going overboard for flowery stuff.  Yep, rot.
These are the disadvantages of poetry
which handicap amateur poet or yet pro.

 Mistakes are often made, yet pro
poets fail to see that they are prey to
spoiling what could be wonderful poetry.
As for amateurs, their lack of care re typos
produces what can only be described as ‘yep rot.’
I wish they’d learned to type or 

check their work of this type or
dictate it to a proper typist, yet pro
and amateur, both guilty of – ‘yep rot’ –
so silly that they’re prey to
unwarranted criticism re typos.
Please, just concentrate on writing poetry

of sestina type or  maybe villanelle, prey to
misinterpretation, yet pro can overcome, with care re typos
and thus prevent the incantation ‘yep, rot’ when writing prose or poetry