[R. S. Gwynn]

Something There Is in Me that Loves a Wall...

It isn't the thrill of scaling it hand over hand
because it's there. It isn't the fear of the fall
with one misstep. It isn't the view of the land
from the conquered height, the bold appraisal of all
that lies without or within. Nor is it the call
of the rarefied air at the top. No gated demesne
tempts me to penetrate; I've no urge to install
new landmarks of my own on an old terrain.

What calls me to walls is the lure of quixotic pain--
the need to dismantle whatever divides the ground,
to try my strength while strength and stone remain--
then the compromise of finding a way around.
It's the butted head, split lip, and purpling bruise,
and knowing the wall will stand and I will lose.


It might be interesting to tighten the meter in the octave to strict iambic after all of the anapestic substitutions used in describing scaling the wall. "demesne" is pretty old hat and seems rhyme-forced. I'm not sure if the title works very well, drawing unneeded attention to Frost's poem (and to the loose iambics he practices in some of his sonnets, "Mowing," for example). The poem sets up an interesting conceit, but the last line seems somehow diminished for me. The sonnet is itself a kind of wall, and very often the form is still standing while we are left lying on out backs looking up at it.

[Tim Murphy]

What so pleased me about this was the loose iambics, which I would like to learn to write! OK, I grant Sam's point about demesne. But I love the last couplet, precisely because that's the way great sonnets make me feel.

[Janet Kenny]

Carol
Now if you'd taken my advice ....

I like the fact that the poem is a wall in itself but not having the version that reached me more deeply (with the forbidden near rhyme) I kknow I have liked it more. It's still very fine.
Janet


Something There Is in Me that Loves a Wall...

It isn't the thrill of scaling it hand over hand
because it's there. It isn't the fear of the fall
with one misstep. It isn't the view of the land
from the conquered height, the bold appraisal of all
that lies without or within. Nor is it the call
of the rarefied air at the top. No gated demesne
tempts me to penetrate; I've no urge to install
new landmarks of my own on an old terrain.

What calls me to walls is the lure of quixotic pain--
the need to dismantle whatever divides the ground,
to try my strength while strength and stone remain--
then the compromise of finding a way around.
It's the butted head, split lip, and purpling bruise,
and knowing the wall will stand and I will lose.

[Jennifer Reeser]

Ditto Tim's comment -- my favorite element of this sonnet is the meter.

Jennifer