Septet as Memoir

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

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.