Poetry: “QUADTINA TO GET MYSELF OVER ME” by Kit Siskin

Perfect for Valentine’s Day, we see Kit Siskin’s quadtina, which is a variation of the sestina, a poetic form requiring six stanzas of six lines with a final triplet, with the final words of each line repeating in a specific order. In the quadtina, we have four stanzas and a final couplet. Siskin attempts this difficult and little-known form perhaps in order to bring a feeling of control in response to the powerful emotions that threaten to spill forth from in between the repetitions; the motif of the cow, chewing cud, seems as if it would be heavy, dragging the poem down and into a frustrating and alienating place, but Siskin brings tension and electricity to every line. The juxtaposition of the self, the nature of attraction, and the inventive approach that Siskin takes to language (“a crowd of unsheathed grins,” and “horns laden and attractive” come to mind) with the cow and the repetitive, drumbeat of the form itself, gives a new and surprising voice to the cow, the self, the quadtina, love, envy, attraction, and Siskin himself. The poem is doing some heavy lifting. Siskin is rewriting what we think we know, and what more can you expect from a Hallmark Holiday, really?