Home Page | The Sestinas of Fred Cogswell | Kathleen Forsythe

In the last 20 years of his life, my father, Fred Cogswell, wrote 100's of Sestinas.  He wrote many other poems as well.  However, he developed a poetic discipline of rising each morning early, taking 6 words and using these to unfold poems using a complex and intricate structure.  

I lived with my father during the last few years of his life until he died in 2004 at the age of 87.  I came to deeply appreciate the extraordinary intellectual task involved in the writing of Sestinas and how he used it to keep his mind active after several debilitating strokes in his early 80's.

It is when I read the sestinas aloud that I truly appreciate their spiralling structure and the manner in which the words both unfold and enfold meaning.

Fred's books can be purchased and read.  Borealis Press and Gooselane Press are both sources.  

This site will feature the oral versions of Fred's Sestinas, read by myself.  They will be included under the section, labelled The Sestinas under Writing a Sestina. 

Kindly

Kathleen Forsythe

January, 2013