[Martin Rocek]

I liked this when it was workshopped not long ago, and like it still. A well-carved cameo amulet, well-matched by Cathy's comment.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Catherine Chandler

"Mower's Song" is a sonnet. And so is Elizabeth Bishop's "Sonnet" as well as a sequence in James Merrill's "The Broken Home". I could list others as well. I would refer readers to The Cambridge Companion to the Sonnet for more insights into the sonnet, its variations, and its continually evolving nature.

Sure, different sources will list different standards for what constitutes a sonnet...and there has to be the expectation of evolution in any form. The sonnet has been around for 700 years or so, after all. Nevertheless, with the exception of rhyme scheme, the form remained largely the same for 600 of those 700 years, then faced numerous mutations throughout the 20th Century. So I guess the real question is this: in a sonnet "competition," is more deference given to sonnets that adhere to the older standard, or to sonnets that are far less tethered to the traditional definition?

This is probably a discussion better suited for a non-poem thread, but it's likely a discussion worth having either way.

[Woody Long]

A fine poem. Visual. Touches of wistfulness, humor, and acceptance. The mower is old, but everything fits together.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

Not if you want to be grammatical (and rhyme as well).

This has been discussed before. Whether or not "I" is correct, "me" in this context would be an example of the "disjunctive pronoun", which these days is considered to be grammatically correct. It would also be a more natural form of speech. Who would say, for instance, "It was she" rather than "it was her", or "I thought I was he" instead of "I thought I was him"?

[Catherine Chandler]

Brian, To answer your question: I would, for one.

[stephenspower]

Thanks, especially for the phrase "disjunctive pronoun." Wikipedia has a good entry on it and the controversy which backs us up. That said, "I" is old-fashioned linguistically, so it does fit the poem.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Catherine Chandler

Brian, To answer your question: I would, for one.

Blimey, Catherine, and there was I thinking that I'm a bit of a pedant!

[Chris Childers]

I thought it was very fine when I saw it on the board a few weeks ago, and I still think so. It's true there isn't a need to say much--the sonnet says it all.

And no, I'm not at all sure I believe that the "point of form" is "to maximize one's creative ability within certain confines." I hope no one who sits down to write a sonnet says, "Okay, here's my prison. Time to make the most of it / maximize my creative ability!"

C

[Tim Murphy]

I truly believe that the fourteener is the greatest stanza in literature. And I don't care if you write in pentameter, tetrameter, trimeter, or dimeter, or some heterometrical combination of them all. And frankly, I am less interested in Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnets, than I am in nonce sonnets. As Professor Pound told us, "Make it new."

[Carolyn Moore]

Oh please! Haven't we been "treated" to enough Poetry Lite under the guise of sonnet? Yawn. I'm out of here.