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Dialogue sestina

Form
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A sestina structured as a conversation between two or more voices

Detailed Definition
A dialogue sestina is a variation of the sestina form—traditionally six stanzas of six lines plus a three-line envoi—reimagined as an exchange between two speakers who alternate lines or stanzas while adhering to the intricate end-word rotation; this hybrid merges formal constraint with conversational tension, deepening thematic complexity through interpersonal dynamics.
Example
Example in poetry:
A sestina where end-words are lines of dialogue, such as “‘Where were you?’ she asked”; A sestina using repeated phrases like “I don’t know” and “Tell me why” as rotating end-words; Marilyn Hacker’s “Cancer Winter,” incorporating spoken exchanges into sestina form; A sestina built from courtroom testimony, each stanza rotating key spoken lines
Additional Notes
A dialogue sestina alternates stanzas or lines between two speakers while adhering to the sestina’s intricate end-word rotation pattern.
Also Known As
Conversational sestina Two-voice sestina Dialogued sestina Alternating sestina Speaking six-stanza Two-voice spiral
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