Prose from Poetry Magazine
Originally Published: March 01, 2023Illustrated Octavia Butler Do-It-Yourself Sestina
“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 “Two Do-It-Yourself Sestina Starters.”
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. In a 2013 interview with Lauren Russell for Hot Metal Bridge, Hayes stated,
I’m chasing a kind of language that can be unburdened by people...