The Jitterbug
 

The Jitterbug

Wherever they took the three of us that night –
some place that had a jukebox or a band,
a VFW hall, a gym – has darkened
and narrowed, leaving in an oval spotlight

their sudden holding hands, their drifting through
a blurred crowd, and now their parallel
spins and matching kicks, how they fell
right into it, hopping in sync, how they knew

how to do it all, even her sweep
beneath his legs – old skill resumed with just
a song they both recalled, some wordless trust.
This little glowing cameo I keep

of my parents, that moment they were stars
one night when they forgot their quiet wars.

I love the play of memory in this poem and how the parents’ “wordless trust” in the dance eclipses, for a time, “their quiet wars.” The off-rhyme “band/darkened” in the first stanza evokes my favorite off-rhymes in Larkin. It is interesting that, after the intentional vagueness of the first stanza, the rhymes turn true as the image focuses. We then get off-rhyme again for the jarring final line. The memory/cameo is so effectively portrayed that the reader feels as if he/she had been there.

The DG is right. After reading this sonnet, it was as if I had been there, too, watching N's parents letting go of their cares and worries, caught up in the frenetic swing music. It's evident the poet cherishes this tender memory, this cameo appearance, as it were, and we're left wondering about the private wars, and what may have transpired once the music stopped.

The instances of slant rhyme and the jumpy, bumpy rhythm reflect the dance itself, and the absence of a single volta is perfect for the swirling throughout.

I think some of the language could possibly be heightened, tightened, such as the phrase "how to do it all" in line 9, which takes up three feet that might otherwise be put to better use.

Now we're talking! Yesterday had me worried a bit, but this is the real thing. Fine sonnet.

This is elegantly done. I like the arc of it from slants to true rhyme and back again, and the way the enjambments keep the movement fluid through the dance. The mystery of who "they" and "the three of us" are is gradually resolved even as memory's spotlight remains on the parents.

Susan

I love it, too. I especially like the double meaning of the title (a jitterbug being both a dance and a nervous person--the narrator seems keenly aware that such occasions are only brief cease-fires in "those quiet wars.")

It's nice, but doesn't get beyond that for me. There's no real turn - just twelve lines of reminiscence and a mild kick at the end, but I think a sonnet should have a more pronounced turn - not because the rule book says so, but because the turn is what makes a short poem into something more complicated, makes the reader blink and think, adds another meaning (several other meanings, sometimes), is what sets a sonnet apart. This one doesn't get past well done and pleasant .

Yes, evocative of memory.

The title is something of an anachronism. Idiomatically, Jitterbug was not so much the name of a dance, but a verb:

Do you know how to jitterbug?

or a noun for a kind of dancer: a jitterbug.

So anyway, I think the title ought to be Jitterbugs. They are a pair. And L14 tells us that all is not hunky dory.

I agree with Cathy that the language could be tightened. how 3 times in L7-L9 is too many. now in L6 doesn't work. Neither does the obvious replacement, then. Some get around is necessary here. The sense should refer to the past, even though what is described is a memory, presumably in the fictive present.

I have this first of the 4 so far on poetic effect, with points off for technical merit.

— Woody

I like the story and the language, but I'm having trouble with some of the meter. In order to get 5 beats I need to stress 'of' in L13, which is awkward because it follows a strong stress on 'keep'. And similarly I need a stress on the last syllable of 'parallel' which seems to clash with the headless start of L7. And I don't like the band/darkened rhyme on an unstressed syllable.

I like this one, with its well-observed details and its final line which changes the whole poem. The off-rhymes and casual rhythms seem fine to me, and the lack of a volta doesn't seem like a problem. The three "hows" bother me a bit, mainly because the third one is not parallel to the first two; the syntax isn't matching the grace of the dancers here.