F-it, Let's Just Write a Sestina

The sestina is a 12th Century French form of poem that's 39 lines long. Yes, that one-sentence description raises red flags, doesn't it? Many fear it. But the world is falling apart anyway, before we all die, let's just do it, let us write a damn sestina.

We'll talk about more recently-written sestinas to get familiar with the form, then plot our ascent using maps, graphs, depth charts, and sorcery (the first three are there as a tongue-in-cheek lie, the 4th, though, is the truth).

ARE YOU WITH ME!?

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MATT MASON is the Nebraska State Poet and was Executive Director of the Nebraska Writers Collective from 2009-2022. Through the US State Department, he has run workshops in Botswana, Romania, Nepal, and Belarus.

Mason is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and the Nebraska Arts Council.