Congratulations on your sestina! Sad to say, or maybe you already know this, James Merrill wrote a sestina using the same end words as yours. It’s called “Tomorrows,” but I don’t think it’s about writing sestinas. And I don’t have a copy of the poem. Or maybe I do; I’d have to dig around.

I agree, though, that coming up with the end words makes it, for me, anyway, a lot easier.

That’s great you found that “Works in Progress” folder. Will working on that stuff help your depression?

About the sestina, did you peek at my sestina in the PAD challenge? It’s called “How to Write a Sestina,” with tongue firmly in cheek.

I’ve wanted to write a sestina like that for years, as a response to Tom Disch’s excellent how-to-write-a-sestina sestina titled “Thirty-Nine Articles.”

In that poem Disch says one should, for the sheer challenge of it, use the six words that first come to mind (or something like that). So in mine, I use “one two three four five six.”

For what it’s worth, though, Disch still kicks my ass. I’ll have to try again another time.

Hope the ankle and the depression are both getting better.

Well…think about it: you teach a full load in addition to everything else you do. I pretty much do whatever I want (sometimes nothing because of the frickin’ depression), and that includes writing. I’m doing my best to get back into it full force. In fact, while cleaning out file drawers, I found a thick “Works in Progress” folder that has a lot of good stuff in it! Plenty there, including revisions of the PAD poems. I have to admit, the sestina took a lot out of me — mentally, not physically!

I didn’t realize I never posted here about my sprained ankle. It’s in an FB note where I only tagged my hockey friends, but I’ll re-post it here.

You wrote 15 times more than I did; I only got 2 poems done, and I wrote those on the last two days for two earlier prompts an animal poem (4/4) and a sestina (4/28).

Sorry to hear about the sprained ankle. I hope you didn’t sprain the ankle writing a poem! I didn’t realize writing poems could be so physical or dangerous.

Hope your ankle is better.