Maryann,

Thank you - that helps me a great deal. I did some googling, too, and it wasn't as helpful as what you just shared. I'm not the grammarian I was 20 years ago, alas.

Thank you, Roger (and Elise) for commenting on my question about the miss/dismiss pairing. I assumed since no one was mentioning it that it hadn’t bothered anybody else. I’ve always thought that compound words are formed from identicals and thus do not rhyme. Of course many words are on the border—such as stain and sustain but coming from completely different roots those are acceptable. (One can check the syllabic breaks in a dictionary, where the latter is divided after the ‘sus’ and not after ‘su’!) Roger, given your explanation, would you hesitate to rhyme these words?

Thinking about the names some more, could ‘Ann’ be the second part of the twin’s name—‘Alan’ or 'Susan'? (Both trochees, which is a kind of twin to an iamb, versificationally [poetically?] speaking.)

Marta

Marta, I might hesitate, but then I'd do it. At any rate, I think it works in this poem.

PS-- Marta, stain and sustain are rhymes because the syllable breakdown of the latter is sus-tain, so the rhyme is stain with "tain." But you are right that a rhyme like that creeps very close to being an identity. By the same token, an identity like missed/dismissed creeps very close to being a rhyme. It's a mistake, I think, to regard rhyme as an either/or proposition. Not all words that rhyme seem to rhyme with equal volume, and not all words that don't rhyme fail to give us the satisfying chime of a true rhyme. Individual cases and context count a lot.

Gail, Nope, not mine, though I do have twin granddaughters!. Much enjoyed.

very well written. gets my vote--so far! (but haven't read them all yet).

Tho I agree about missed/dismissed.

And before I saw it mentioned by someone else I felt the naming of "Ann" unnecessary (reminiscent of "Maeve" in that other poem) or that it didn't work somehow. Yes, Ann is a strong, definite name, suits the character of the older twin as presented. But I still think putting in her name detracts from the poem.

Detracts, and distracts.

Christine --

I didn't mean to suggest that actually naming the first twin, "Ann," was a bad thing in the poem. I only wondered whether the second twin -- the N. of the poem -- should have been named too.

Too cool for sonnet school! It's so clever and polished that the metrical bumps in L5 really stood out for me. Clean them up and it's fine. I often have an unreasonable prejudice against poems about poetry, but this one wins me over.

Ah OK Elise...I think I was thinking more of your later comment, along the lines of "why would the narrator mention the name Ann at all?"

But then I see you do go on to qualify it by saying, as in the earlier comment, that it makes one feel that the N should perhaps be named too....

Well, I'm not sure Ann should be named at all...

That last year of the fifties,
still before the eyes of ultrasound,
the doctor missed me waiting there behind you.
When he pressed the stethoscope,
his single silver ear,
to the darkness,
listening with no picture,
he couldn't find me hiding
and dismissed the second heart,
my weaker beat,
as just a bouncing off,
an echo trailing yours.

I tried to read the sonnet aloud and the enjambs of the octet just didn't read well, were unnatural, I don't think this technigue works except where there is a natural pause. You can accept it on the page, maybe but when you really listen to the words, the rhythm, it doesn't play (for me). It may break up the monotony of end rhymes but it replaces it with another problem.

Very lovely and with, as others have mentioned, deeper levels and possibilities. "While I, a hesitation, then a sound/ that never seems to finish or begin/ forever pause to check myself, to question,/ that second beat still waiting to be found." Wow. It suggests a dark side of attributes one associates with God: Alpha/Omega (never seems to finish or begin); eternal/ at rest (forever pause); the Judge of Judgment Day (to check...to question). "A hesitation, then a sound" which describes the Iamb, a word that only becomes an iamb when said as "I am!" That hesitation of the thoughtful person before expressing themselves. These are written as if the N feels these are weaknesses, while it could be argued the opposite. This is all something one can read into it, although the focus of the actual poem is the twins, and how the 2nd twin feels overlooked. It's also a perfect description of an extrovert/ introvert comparison.

Definitely this is one of the best. They seem to improve as we count up the list.