Another good one, Ralph. And good on ya for quitting, if N is you.
I hope we can drum up some interest in this thread. I promise not to let it slip down the board. It's too important.
Tell the truth, I'm more than a bit surprised. I'd have thought this would have fifty responses by now.
I workshopped this sonnet, written in loose alexandrines, here in 2012. I hope it's in the spirit, as it's about the great poet Derek Walcott, though it doesn't have the gut-punch of your sonnet.
(And as anyone familiar with Walcott will be able to see, I am imitating him like a banshee.)
Reading Walcott
When this man writes white almonds, I pretend I'm blind
as a bat that's lying dreaming on a book of Homer,
so I can go on reading, in my head a number
of voices ricocheting, a deliquescent grind
of genuine island lilts and one that's less refined:
my landlocked cracker mimick. No. We must remember
the almonds. White, he said. Alright. I see a comber
Curling in, on top a watermelon rind-
white froth of foam that seems to want to settle down
upon an arc of shoreline where I see together
a woman and a man in daylight sharp as a diamond.
Her hair is dark and flying loose, skin cinnamon-brown,
half-naked, and him the same; they laugh and love the weather.
They wave me over to them, toss me a sweet white almond.
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