Septet as Memoir
Writer’s Digest|May - June 2024
Poet Wayne Lee set out on a journey to write nothing but septets for a year—not knowing it would help him grapple with one of the most emotionally challenging years of his life.
WAYNE LEE
Septet as Memoir

An old poet friend commemorated his 60th birthday by publishing a chapbook of sestets. I liked the idea, so in 2018, when I started my 70th year on this planet, I decided to write a collection of septets. I took my friend’s idea a couple steps further, though, by imposing upon myself the rather draconian discipline of writing nothing but septets for the entire year.

When I started my septetathon, there was no way I could have foreseen what a dramatic—and traumatic—12 months it would prove to be. Some things were known. I had been a caregiver for my disabled wife for 20 years, and I was burned out. Alice had a terminal, genetic, neurological condition called Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3, and her health had deteriorated to the point where we had to put her in an assisted living facility in Portland, Oregon. I was renting a room in a farmhouse 23 miles away, driving back and forth to care for her. It had been a long, exhausting ordeal watching my life partner and fellow poet lose so many of her gifts and abilities. Still, I thought we had at least a few more years together.

Then, one afternoon three months into my project, the unknown happened when Alice swallowed enough pills to end her life-without telling me.

I spent the next nine months trying to cope with the shock of that loss, stumbling through my grieving process and doing my best to recreate my life as a widower. Capturing the upheaval of that year in seven-line capsules was a challenge. It forced me to crystalize my thoughts and feelings and, in the process, helped me digest them in bite-sized bits rather than choking on the enormity of it all.

この記事は Writer’s Digest の May - June 2024 版に掲載されています。

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この記事は Writer’s Digest の May - June 2024 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

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