[Lewis Turco]

Well, if you’re going to run any contest, shouldn’t there be some rules? If you’re going to run a sonnet contest, shouldn’t the tradition and rules of the sonnet form be honored? Not many people have earned an actual “poetic license” (many of my former students have done so), but I suppose that now there’s an Internet most would-be poets have a “virtual” poetic license and can call anything a “sonnet” or anything else they want to call it. But that doesn’t mean everything they “call” a sonnet actually is one.

[R. Nemo Hill]

We all know you can't think yourself outside of that box you've long since thought yourself into, Lewis. No need to confirm that dull fact over and over again. Rule over your own damn contest. You've already displayed your poor sense of debate up here in threads past, raising your voice a notch whenever challenged, and saying the same thing over and over and over and over again like a tourist speaking their own little language in a foreign country. Get your eye off the tree and out into the vast beautiful forest.

Yawn,
Nemo

[Roger Slater]

Originally Posted by Lewis Turco

But that doesn’t mean everything they “call” a sonnet actually is one.

Nor does it mean that everything you refuse to call a sonnet actually isn't one.

[dean peterson]

Nothing in that drawer ...

[Tim Murphy]

I met Lewis Turco once, in an elevator at West Chester, the first conference. Greg Williamson, one of the best young poets of my acquaintance, and I courteously introduced ourselves and asked his name. Professor Turco responded in rage, "Don't you know who I am?"

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Lewis Turco

Well, if you’re going to run any contest, shouldn’t there be some rules? If you’re going to run a sonnet contest, shouldn’t the tradition and rules of the sonnet form be honored? Not many people have earned an actual “poetic license” (many of my former students have done so), but I suppose that now there’s an Internet most would-be poets have a “virtual” poetic license and can call anything a “sonnet” or anything else they want to call it. But that doesn’t mean everything they “call” a sonnet actually is one.

Sounds reasonable to me. And Roger's neat inversion of your final sentence in no way invalidates it.

[Roger Slater]

Well, surely Alicia Stallings, Dick Davis, Robert Frost, Tim Murphy and many others who disagree with Lew's strict definition have earned their poetic licenses and the rest of us unlicensed onlookers therefore have license to adopt the point of view that strikes us as most useful. Personally, I think that this poem and many others that would flunk Lew 's sonnet test are sonnet- like enough to claim the name, though of course those who care about such things will promptly see that they are different in some ways from the the sonnet tradition as practiced in earlier eras.

[R.A. Briggs]

Originally Posted by Lewis Turco

Well, if you’re going to run any contest, shouldn’t there be some rules?

Yes. The official rules of the Bake-Off are here. Julie Stoner has also posted this helpful statement of the de facto aesthetic guidelines.

If you’re going to run a sonnet contest, shouldn’t the tradition and rules of the sonnet form be honored?

Yes. I'm not arguing about whether to honor tradition and rules, but about how to honor them. I'd argue that like other genres, a sonnet is anything with enough of the traditional features (in rough order of importance: volta, 14 lines--typically divided by rhyme and meaning into an octave and a sestet or three quatrains and a couplet, regular meter--typically iambic pentameter, rhyme scheme--most typically Petrarchan or Shakespearean or Spenserian). In other words, "sonnet" is a cluster concept. (This blog post by Mohan Matthen gives a clear explanation of what a cluster concept is. Matthen is critical of the idea when it comes to concepts like "game" and "species", but doesn't consider literary genres.)

Not many people have earned an actual “poetic license” (many of my former students have done so), but I suppose that now there’s an Internet most would-be poets have a “virtual” poetic license and can call anything a “sonnet” or anything else they want to call it.

I don't see why anybody needs a license to write a poem or make an argument.

True, credentials matter in fields like medicine and engineering, where the training is rigorous and the requisite knowledge is hard to come by outside of school. In poetry, though, you get plenty of type I and type II errors. (Uh. It's not rude if you say it with statistics, right?)

Also, the cost of screwups is much lower in poetry than in medicine or engineering.

But that doesn’t mean everything they “call” a sonnet actually is one.

Certainly, if I call my left shoe a sonnet, I am wrong. And if somebody with dazzling credentials calls my left shoe a sonnet, they are also wrong. But some things are borderline cases of sonnets. There's an old philosophical puzzle about how those things are compatible, but somehow, they manage to be.

Also, shouldn't the scare quotes be around "sonnet", instead of "call"?

[R.A. Briggs]

Ha ha, this is me.

[Woody Long]

I love this cartoon. Funny and stylish. Definitely what's going on with me, especially this last week.