I was grateful for this trip to Scotland and homage to J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. The poet sets up the turn effectively in the octave with images of crude and bored adulthood (“the seething, soused and boring”). The poem contains no similes and no metaphors—its power comes from the matter-of-fact description of the scene, and the animation of the statue in sestet. The sonnet is the perfect form for this content, which the poet marshals effortlessly through the rhymes. The “small bronze boy,” saying nothing, powerfully conveys his wisdom.
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Threaded Mode
