Just One Thing with Marlin M. Jenkins

You can find Marlin M. Jenkins’ poem “Do You Have Thoughts About Harming Yourself?” both in our online issue and in our brand new print issue. Here they share just one thing about the piece:

“My poem ‘Do You Have Thoughts About Harming Yourself?’ happened as a result of my dear friend J. Bailey Hutchinson proselytizing about sestinas during an Instagram live interview. I hadn't yet figured out how I wanted to write about the terrible experience I'd had in the hospital—how the cyclical nature of the experience felt traumatic—and that conversation allows it all to click into place: I immediately knew the poem needed to be a sestina, albeit a broken one, both contained by and resisting the form's walls and returns.”