Roger, apparently we respectfully disagree about how to interpret Frost's quote on free verse. "Design," of course, is still in pentameter, although, yes, license is evident in rhyme scheme as well as a two-stanza format.

Well, Wyatt introduced the couplet and wrote in meter that would get him skewered on the met board, and Surrey broke the sonnet into quatrains. If Shakespeare could write a tetrameter sonnet, and Sidney could write in hexameter, and Spenser could make up his own rhyme scheme, when did traditionalism reign in the English sonnet?

The sonnet stops short at line 2 for me, and it takes the rest of the poem to recover. It’s a strange thing to say that the boy thought he was the narrator, and the thought is left hanging.

Love it
 

My favorite so far, skillful, unique and touching all at once. Kudos to the Mower man.

Mower's Song
 

The simplicity of this one is just right; it feels as if it arrived in a a single breath. The trimeter delights me, and I love the ending. 'I' is the correct pronoun and doesn't give me any trouble (as 'me' would have done).
Like others I especially like the ending.

Straight outta Minnesota. This is a fine poem, we all know who the poet is and why it'll work for in a collection of theirs. And would people just shut up about the sonnet form, God, it's exhausting - it's what ever the poet wants it to be - open up your corsets and coffins.

J

Sweet little song, suitable for singing while mowing grass. I agree with critics who can't parse L1 and L2. (If you're allowed to substitute words for identical things and make the other necessary grammatical changes, I guess it's equivalent to "I think that I once was the boy who mows my lawn." But everybody knows you can't do that within the scope of "thinks". Lois thinks Superman is handsome; she thinks Clark Kent is a dweeb.)

I like the list of mower parts.

Lewis Turco, your Book of Forms is wonderful and I adore it forever, but I can't agree with you about this. As others have pointed out, poets have been pushing the conventions of the English sonnet since Petrarch.

(Oh well. Thank you for all the wonderful poetry words. And here I am being a logic stickler, just the way you're a iambic pentameter stickler. Just don't start saying bad things about feminism, and I can live with the cognitive dissonance.)

Some links with Marvell's "Mower's Song"--

The younger and older man contrasted--

MY mind was once the true survey
Of all these meadows fresh and gay,
And in the greenness of the grass
Did see its hopes as in a glass ;
. . .

The lopped grass and man--

And flowers, and grass, and I, and all,
Will in one common ruin fall ;

Like some others, I’m having trouble with the logic of the first two lines; the rest of the poem suggests that “I” think “I’m” a “boy,” not the other way around.

But after that confusion, this has a simple charm to it, convincingly linking man, nature, and scripture.

As for form, one thing I love about the sonnet form is its conciseness—and trimeter makes for an even more concise “moment’s monument,” well-suited for this modest but thoughtful moment.

How about:

The boy who mows my yard
Is the boy who used to be me

one I used way back.

Actually, I kind of prefer Clark. At least he's not a fly-by-night...
Lois (E)laine