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Two Do-It-Yourself Sestina Starters

DIY SESTINA FOR EMMETT TILL
Image: 2 box columns with words in them, one empty box in the middle, and 2 more box columns, with 1 long box underneath. DIY SESTINA FOR THE GHOSTS WATCHING YOURSELF
Image: 2 box columns with words in them, one empty box in the middle, and 2 more box columns, with 1 long box underneath.

Editor's Note:

“Not Too Hard to Master” is a new series of poets writing on form and sharing a prompt. This is the second essay in the series. Read Terrance Hayes’s “Your Do-It-Yourself Sestina,” “‘Envoi’ of William H. Johnson’s ‘Nude,’” and “Illustrated Octavia Butler Do-It-Yourself Sestina.”
Originally Published: March 1st, 2023

Born in Columbia, South Carolina, Terrance Hayes earned a BA at Coker College and an MFA at the University of Pittsburgh. In his poems, in which he occasionally invents formal constraints, Hayes considers themes of popular culture, race, music, and masculinity. “Hayes’s fourth book puts invincibly restless wordplay at the...

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