[Roger Slater]

The turn in a sonnet can often come in the final couplet, as Shakespeare sometimes did. I don't see this sonnet as lacking a turn at all.

[Catherine Chandler]

I see two turns in it. That's why it swings!

[Rick Ferris]

I love this.

[Simon Hunt]

Memorable and well-turned. However, the meter seems at times to lurch a bit for me rather than to swing. Likewise, some of the slant rhymes are really slant. Too slant?

[Martin Rocek]

There’s a lot going on here: N’s special memory with the loss of detail and perhaps accuracy set up in S1, N’s parents’ memory of better times evoked by a song, their underlying connection that endures through their “quiet” wars—a lot to pack into 14 lines. Still, I think there are a few weak points—in S2, I’m bothered by “now” and the inversion L12-13. But with a bit of buffing, I’m sure that this multifaceted gem can be polished up.

[David Anthony]

Fine sonnet with a killer close.
Nice change from the usual dad dancing reminiscences.

[Mary Meriam]

Originally Posted by Michael Cantor

This one doesn't get past well done and pleasant .

What he said. How about some wild originality and passion.

[Tim Murphy]

As Auden once tactfully said, "I fear I am not yet worthy of this poet."

[Robin Helweg-Larsen]

Delightful, evocative and appropriately enhanced by the slightly loosened rhythm throughout, and capped memorably by the last lines. I love it.

[Bruce McBirney]

The disclosure at the end that the remembered dancers were the narrator's often squabbling parents was, for me, one of the touching highlights of the bake-off.

The relaxed meter, with an extra bounce or prance at times, or a step short at others, seems to fit with fit this poem (where the dance itself probably was not perfect, except perhaps in the amazed eyes of the dancers' children).

Lovely work.