[Clive Watkins]

The force of the last line is not just a matter of the sentiment expressed and the fitness of the metaphor employed: it springs as much from its formal qualities, too. It is the only line in the poem where two conditions occur: perfect coincidence of the syntactical unit with the line, absolute metrical regularity. (Of course, being the last line, it also shows the strongest degree of end-stopping.) In every other line there is either some metrical variation from the poem’s normative IP, or the line is broken by the patterns of syntax, or both these things occur. Furthermore, the sense of closure which couplet rhyme naturally tends to give is strengthened here by contrast with the handling of the quatrain patterns of the first twelve lines. In every case these are broken by strong enjambments, weakening any feeling of completion after the second rhyme-pair. Thus it is in the formal qualities of the last line that the striving for "the impure conditional", as mimed in the searching and unsettled syntax, in the unsettled metre, and in the rhyming of the previous lines, is finally resolved.

This is, by the way, an effect Rhina employs elsewhere, in - for instance - "Voyeur" in Where Horizons Go or "Pig" in Lapsing to Grace.

- Fine poem, Rhina!

Clive Watkins

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

I'm the one who is "abashed." Thank you, Dick, Tim, everybody, for the generosity of your comments! This is an old English teacher's poem, as much as anything else: I suppose the grammar gets into the poetry the same way the cooking and child-rearing and gardening do, as part of the "vocabulary" of my days.

Terese, what I meant in line 3 and maybe didn't say clearly is that the indicative seems to do the whole job when you're young, but once it has slipped away (by becoming inadequate)the subjunctive becomes "the mood of choice," in both senses: the "right" mood, but also the mood that reveals the choices, such as they are. I'm not sure that comes through, but it was in my mind.

The trouble with words is that they're the only nails we have, but they don't nail reality down perfectly or permanently! In two languages I've never once succeeded in making a situation or a feeling or an insight sit still completely, but only partially. I appreciate your comment. And what a pleasure it was to ride crosstown in that taxi with you! You made that otherwise frantic experience fun.

[Terese Coe]

Hi Rhina

First I must say you couldn't possibly have enjoyed the crosstown taxi more than I did! Such serendipity...I still love your line which included the words "I" and "remember." [Sorry folks, the joke is private but suffice it to say Rhina is a witty lady in person!] I'll be sending you an email soon to recap, so don't block my emails just yet.

About L3: Yes I understood your meaning perfectly, and a very fine point it is! That the subjunctive (as in "if it were, should it be, then it would or could" and so on) is the friend of age and wisdom, whereas the indicative is tailormade for youth and spontaneity. Quite true indeed.

I simply meant that in the best of all possible worlds, "has slipped away" would have come at the end of the sentence and "that seemed to say it all once" would be set off with commas. But forgive this annoying intrusion please: it's a poem and your poetic license carries full validity! Not to mention that Clive Watkins liberated the nit happily and with great finesse just before your post.

Rhina, you're a dream and an inspiration, and I mean that in the best possible sense!

Terese

[Solan]

You jumped from IV to IX. What happened to the sonnets inbetween?

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Svein Olav

[Tim Murphy]

Five through eight are the Double Headers, Barnett, Warren, Wakefield, and Crawford. Let me enthusiastically endorse Clive's technical analysis of this poem, which exactly accords with my own.

[Catherine Tufariello]

The comments in this thread are a pleasure worthy of the poem.

Another reason I find this sonnet so effective and affecting, in addition to the reasons mentioned by others above, is that before reading it I would have associated the subjunctive (used to express hopes, dreams, wishes-against-fact) with youth, but Rhina shows instead how the "mood of choice" belongs to age.

Beautiful poem. Thanks, Rhina.

[Alan Sullivan]

Very carefully contrived, but I am stopped briefly by "say/act and remembrance." The relationship between the verb and the two nouns is just not clear to me, and I feel troubled by this, in a poem using grammar as its principal trope. Italics would not really solve the problem.

The beginning is fine, and the ending superb, but l. 4&5 detract somewhat from the overall effect, at least for me.

A.S.