Thanks, Alicia, and thanks, guys, for the kind comments. This is a Dorn Sonnet, invented by that indefatigable formalist, Alfred Dorn, whose contest--the World Order of Narrative & Formalist Poets Contest--has done so much to spur interest in old and new formal patterns. I love this form he's come up with, for the nervous shifting of rhymes in the octave, its unexpected couplet ending, and then the "settled down" sestet that works like a Petrarchan. Each year I wait for Alfred's guidelines, to see what new challenges he's set up!
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