Sestina Response

Anna Cantwell
Mrs. Jernigan
AP English Lit
29 March 2011
Sestina Response
I found Florence Cassen Mayers’ “All-American Sestina” an intriguing contemporary poem. With form and structure as particular as the sestina, one cannot help but pick apart, piece by piece, a poem like this one. Her sestina is sequential, compiling like a snowball hurtling down an icy slope. References to things like baseball (America’s so-called pastime), “two-car garages” (symbolizing America’s rampant materialism), Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address (epitomizing America’s pride), Bud light (the beer of America), and countless other popular cultural, historical, and patriotic references. Even in the scant amount of words that Mayers’ utilizes, I can taste the slightest hints of bitterness and cynicism.
I can’t help but wonder how the author provides such a holistic picture of an entire nation in such a small amount of words. This fragmented view is like a meal of tapas—little tastes of the highs and lows of many cuisines. This mirrors the nature of America, a motley melting pot of races, religions, cultures, ethnicities, lifestyles, and worldviews. The freedom in her speech, perhaps, celebrates the freedoms we have been given to virtually speak and act as we choose.