Sestinas Bust My Brain (to Start with)

Contemporary poetry has made me fall in love with poetic forms, even the very complicated and uncompromising form that is The Sestina. While it makes so many demands on you as a poet, there is something to be said for those who make more than music of its many rules, who make you realize that the strictest of poetics forms are less about restriction and more about innovation, craft and the repetitious, incanting magic of end words. While I will always be a free verse poet at heart, I'm grateful how poetic forms have challenged me by teaching me a more urgent kind of diligence while having a stronger sense of "direction." These are some of my favorite sestinas, which I regularly teach in workshop, which often win over the most free-verse-loving of students.