[Aaron Poochigian]

Thirteen

My buddy Jake’s bar mitzvah was all right.
His parents own this chain of health boutiques,
so at the party there were all these freaks:
women with faces pulled up high and tight,
hair so blond it almost looked pure white,
and this one yoga teacher with her cheeks
like dynamite in tights was giving peeks
at her brand new boob job by the pool all night.
Jake said she told him since he was a man
he could touch—and he leaned in close, and felt
her breath all thick with beer against his skin.
Up in the game room, I didn’t know a thing.
I heard about it later as he held
the locker door with a clenched and shaking hand.

[Aaron Poochigian]

The colloquial tone seduced me instantly, and my passionate affair with this poem lasted all the way through the two turns (after lines 8 and 11) and final image. It is remarkable that the author so effortlessly fits the speaker’s story into such a demanding a rhyme scheme (abba/abba). After so virtuosic a display, one can only be certain that the shift to off-rhymes in the sestet (cde/edc/) is purposeful—the lack of chime in the final three lines brings us back to a far less sexually exciting reality and lands us in surprising shifts of setting (game room, middle school).

[Simon Hunt]

Extra points for topicality since the real-life yoga teacher 's trial only recently resolved in her acquittal? I agree that this is very skillful in its story-telling and its handling of structure and rhyme. The cheeks/dynamite/tights image seemed perhaps a tad oblique for this speaker to me, though, and how about a dash in place of the comma at the end of line 5?

[Catherine Chandler]

Call me a political junkie, but that locker line (14) immediately brought to mind the current US election discourse . All the health "freaks" are women, with six lines dedicated to the one who is basically (and literally) asking for it!

I agree with the DG that the colloquial tone works in the context, but I disagree with him/her that the Petrarchan rhyme scheme is overly demanding, and that the poet showed virtuosity in using it.

An interesting vignette, but for me, it's a one-read.

[Tim Murphy]

I find the Petrarchan octave nigh impossible, but otherwise, what Cathy said.

[Roger Slater]

As far as the demands of the form are concerned, they are considerably reduced by the poet's decision not to rhyme (in any meaningful way) the last six lines. It may have been purposeful and thematically justified, but it does make the writing less demanding to pull off.

The sonnet seems to be all about tone and trying to capture the voice of the young speaker, but for me it would have been nice if the captured voice had been called upon to do a bit more work. I'm left with a so-what feeling at the end of this.

As far as the tone and voice are concerned, the last two lines strike me as a departure from the diction and register of the preceding lines.

But on the whole, it all reads smoothly and satisfies as a one-read, to use Catherine's term.

[Claudia Gary]

I agree with Cathy that the petrarchan form isn't all that difficult. Or maybe it's just a matter of practice. (Do we poets get points for years spent in the game?)

As for Roger's comment about the sestet, to me it seems to be rhymed with deliberate variations, rather than unrhynmed. Such would correspond well to the layer of complication and conflict now added to the bar mitzvah boy's life. The poem has a moving conclusion, although I agree with Cathy that it's a "one-read."

[Orwn Acra]

Freak is what non-thirteen-year-olds think thirteen-year-olds use in conversation. The voice does not convince me.

[Judith Terzi]

For me the charm of this sonnet is the juxtaposition of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony and the boobs Jake gets to touch because now he is a "man." Perhaps that line needs a more convincing word instead of "since." Something more immediate to up the irony. I think the voice of a thirteen year old is sustained throughout.

[Jennifer Gordon]

Well, this effectively erased that supposed sanctified sense attached to the event under consideration.
My la!
Beginning on the right foot, L4 abruptly ushers in a departure as it swears technicality is beyond reach whiles we recklessly force the steamy incident into this frame not unlike that woman's leggings (would I be allowed to call them?) and *cough, cough* enticement drawing the young man into his own, so speak.
Ah, but that finale too poignantly illustrates the happy incident.
Otherwise I like how the sonneteer less than subtly puts the dames in their place with that simile in L5.
Interesting and rather piquant, shall we say?