Sweet and too close to home...
 

Beautifully iambic and the most modernistic I hope accept in a sonnet, playing like the legitimate with a Spenserian touch, deftly rambling into the sestet with Miltonian ease, and the characteristic laziness of a Shakespearian where we find it too easy to run ourselves nearly out of bounds ere being forced to tie it all up with a closing couplet, which this handily tenders sans the exaction.

Why did I fall for this beauty so easily?

Maybe because I saw afresh my saplings, the inevitable trash and all that too familiar abuse forced on those tender innocents made to endure what I couldn't, while dearly yearning to solace me in their shade and figures standing against man's sorry retinue of desecrations.

I love the easy flow, forcing myself to nit pick for that "haven't" in L1 which would be best written out, but is perfectly fine as is.

L9 is definitely not iambic, as if the sonneteer felt lazy enough to yield to the easier excuse of finishing out the thought begun in L8 as if sacrificing a bit couldn't hurt. I know the feeling too well, and have to guard against it to maintain a higher standard since I have a healthy lazy streak.

The confusion over the initial injunction and surprising final plea leave the reader mulling the hopes pinned on these two darlings, apparently planted on Arbour Day, this not so tender array of offenses to endure proffered as they are beginning brightly enough to face a harrowing year ere time can crown them with success.

Perhaps I've gone overboard in appreciation for the closeness of the topic and delicious imagery's array of familiarity. Recklessly barely matched or unmatched end-rhyming crown this as another which makes the grade for its pleasing ability to look perfect when it clearly is not.

Thanks for sharing, I fear I love it too much.

ttfn,
Jenny

I meant to comment on this poem earlier. I like the message and the way it is conveyed. The poem does have attitude and interesting imagery. The "salt-road I.V drip of winter" is definitely inspired, and I kind of liked being called a "snag" at the end (learn a new word every day). The poem wants to pick a fight with me, and I kind of like that approach. This is another one where I have a good guess who wrote it.

It is interesting to see that the "list" sonnet is a pretty successful approach, at least in this competition.

By the way, are we sure this one didn't come in at 12:01? Were the clocks synchronized? Just sayin ... hey, the poem started it!

Sean

Yes, Sean, believe it or not, the email arrived at 11:59 p.m.!

sonnet form
 

I'm just posting this comment randomly at any sonnet.... There has been some debate about adherence to sonnet "form" since this bake-off began. Is this a stupid or too obvious question? There are the Petrarchan, Spensarian, Shakespearean sonnets, etc. Obviously, someone tinkered with the form at some point. To the so-called "traditionalists": Why can't someone tinker a bit with it now?

Welcome, Elise. There is obviously no reason other than the disapproval of those who have declared themselves the guardian of a tradition they are so happy with as it stands that they wish it to continue without further changes. I'm sorry they are disappointed, but there's really nothing they can do about it, since poets will do what they do and that's life.

I agree that poets will do what they do, and that they're entitled to call the results poems. The question is, are they entitled to call them sonnets? I think that the point made by many people is that of course the sonnet will evolve in terms of content, but that in terms of form, if pushed too far, the word "sonnet" ceases to be meaningful.

To take a musical analogy that I've used elsewhere:

If I write a four-movement work for orchestra, there's a good chance I can call it a symphony.

If I write a one-movement piece for orchestra (Sibelius's 7th), or an 11-movement piece for orchestra and voices (Shostakovich's 14th), there's a reasonable chance that I can do the same.

But if I write a 1, 4, or 11-movement piece for solo piccolo, it would be meaningless to call it a symphony. And a completely classical four-movement work for two violins, viola and cello is not a symphony - because it's a string quartet.

So a 13-line or a 15-line sonnet? Maybe. A 5-line sonnet in anapestic metre with an AABBA rhyme-scheme? No, that's a limerick.

Of course the formal boundaries can be stretched, but only within certain limits. Beyond that, it's a different animal.

I realize that this begs the essential question: what are those limits? But I'm just about sonneted out for the moment.

Two Lindens
 

I voted for this as one of my top three. (Let me here apologize publicly for voting for my own sonnet too, not realizing it was a breach of etiquette.) A lovely sonnet; congratulations to the author.

I admire the accumulation of well-chosen details, and "morn" doesn't bother me the way it bothers some commenters. But I agree that line 13 is confusing.