View Single Post
  #9  
Unread 05-09-2014, 04:01 PM
Orwn Acra Orwn Acra is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: NYC
Posts: 2,343
Default

The "Is this a sonnet?" question does not particularly interest me and is bound to rouse the reactionaries; however, I find this poem to be more successful at pushing the boundaries of sonnethood than the one headlining this thread. The former, at least, approximates a sonnet's constraints as much as it can under it's own constraints (that is, it pushes the polka dots as far as they can go into resembling a sonnet). The poem above has far less strenuous constraints--it can use actual words, for instance--but violates the physics of its self-made world.

Let me unpack this idea a bit more: The use of dimeter is good; it sets up the proper tone and texture of what's to come. The couplets also fit the poem. I don't understand what is gained by not using any sonnet form's rhyme scheme (Petrarchan, Shakespearian, Spencerian) and by replacing the traditional sestet with a quartet. The poem doesn't have to be a sonnet, I am not sure why the author wishes it to be one, or what the poem gains by being a sonnet.

In my opinion, this is an interesting, but failed, experiment... if taken as a sonnet.
Reply With Quote