John DeChancie
In addition to his talents as a novelist and raconteur, John DeChancie is quite a poet. Here are excerpts from his verse at Mondo.com.
”A Heinlein Sestina” extols the Golden Age author in a formal poem of 66 lines with a 3 line envoi. It begins —
You lead a life that rolls on many roads,
You bore a tunnel to a russet planet,
A stranger land, but one you’ll always love.
“Godzilla Verses” is a chain of haiku for our favorite kaiju. The first is —
The earth shakes bearing
Footprints as big as fish ponds
I rage against men
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
John is also both a painter of distinction he has also drawn some fine cartoons. He often provides covers for both APA-L and LASFAPA in addition to his zines in both APAs. John has provided the cover for APA-L #2597, the distribution being collated two days from now, with 8 Godzilla Verses (from Mondo Cult) along with a drawing of Godzilla. John is indeed a man of many talents.
The sestina has 39 lines, not 66. I’ve heard of double sestinas at 72 or 75 lines, but never at 66. Really picky readers might argue that this isn’t a proper sestina because the envoi uses only 3 of the 6 key words….
Chip: Yes, you’ve convinced me really picky readers might do that…
I was repeating DeChancie’s definition. Otherwise, my sestina recognition skills are less sophisticated than my ability to recognize haiku — by counting syllables on my fingers….