[Tim Murphy]

The aged man mowing my yard is pretending that he is the youthful I. I don't think that's very hard to figure out. I got a really good new sonnet today, hetmet couplets, pentameters and trimeters. It's got a turn and it would drive Turco widdershins.

[Tim Murphy]

Andrew, Design is in classical hendecasyllabics, not pentameter. Study up.

[Maryann Corbett]

Tim, are you quite sure about the meter of "Design"? Design

Might you be thinking of "For Once, Then, Something"?

[Martin Elster]

Tim, I believe you were thinking of "For Once, Then, Something." (I posted this before seeing Maryann's reply.)

I remember "Mower's Song" from the workshop. I loved it then, and still do.

[Andrew Sacks]

Wrong, Tim.

And I am disappointed by the tone of your response. I thought we were all poetry-lovers and mutual supporters here.

[Latorial Faison]

I liked "Mower’s Song" first for its rhyme and then for its message hidden. I gather that the writer is the boy who thinks he was the man who, at one point in his life, really was the boy.

This poem reminded me of my grandfather who died last year of Alzheimer's. This could be his song, his sonnet.

The sonnet coasts along showing how times have changed just with the transition of the lawn mower, but I love how this is really an illustration of life, the mower's life, not just the mower.

"He's no longer cute" . . . that line made me laugh. At 92, my grandfather (because of Alzheimer's) was back to being a young boy. I used to imagine what he looked like as a boy, but it was hard because I was looking at a man nearly 100.

That line about the "Lord's Third Day" was wonderfully place. It gives readers another small peek into the life of the mower and shows that though many things have come and gone "that knowledge" is still there. He believes, and I love poems by poets who believe and are not afraid to show it

Very nice.

[Rick Mullin]

I like this one. Of course it's a sonnet (I only read the first one or two comments)

[Scott Miller]

Marly, that's a good find, thanks! Definitely a different trope altogether despite some similarities. I'm curious how Marvell informs this piece, assuming it's intentional, which I have to think it is.

[Tim Murphy]

My bad, Andrew. I am confusing Design and For Once Then Something. Senior Moment. I apologize.

[Paul Connolly]

We're living in a post-Darwin era, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that sonnets must adapt or become extinct. And they've been adapting for as long as they've been around -- seven centuries? Me, I'll wait another 60,000,000 years before pronouncing judgement on which mutations were successful and which were not.

The contest rules didn't specify which species of sonnet were acceptable and which were not -- all permutations welcome -- I think that's the right way to go.

"Mower's Song" -- I like it.