Inflection

People will say it's overblown;

That really nothing new or worse went on.

They'll say it's something we've already known

For years. Nothing has changed. Nothing is gone.

They'll tell you to stop acting like today

Began a chapter, or else saw one end;

That they could see it coming far away

So it's just confirmation of a trend.

They'll swear it's nothing new under the sun

Or if it is, you shouldn't really care;

That everything today could have been done

The day, the year, before. And that's all fair.

But when they do say it's been true before

Tell them that we won't take it anymore.

Little Room

I felt inspired; then I went to write. 

And suddenly the thought of composition

Is terrifying. Should I keep it light,

Or would that lightness trigger your derision

As if the topic that I wrote about

Deserved no better? Should I try instead

To prove significance beyond a doubt

By writing heavier than would be read?

Are darker poems better? Lighter? None?

Would even this be read by anyone?

At last I sat and told myself: ignore

These meta questions. Write your thoughts. Go on.

And so I write. I love you more and more

Even though this sonnet space is gone.

Social Contract Theory

Politics should be the art of deals

But for that to work, there has to be

Agreement on the base humanity

Of everyone involved. If one side feels

Only they have rights, that likely seals

The fate of all negotiations. We

Can compromise to build society

But not when compromising subtly steals

A part of us away. To deal we must

Acknowledge that all parties play a part:

A compromise is made of cut-and-thrust

But no one's thrust should cut another's heart.

All politics must be, then, built on trust

Without which we can never even start.

Karenina

It's easier to write about a love that seems

Impossible or difficult or somehow barred;

That occupies the distant orbit of one's dreams;

Whose realization is unlikely, or just hard.

A troubled love's complaint, although of course not new,

Is for that very reason often easier

To share with others who, perhaps, have suffered too.

Its treatment may be lighter, open, breezier,

Or wrought beyond belief into a twist of woe

But either way, the audience is primed to feel

Beside you, filtered through what they already know:

Which means that they'll believe that thwarted love is real.

But speak of love achieved, and Tolstoy's words reverse:

A happy love's unique, and so the poem's worse.

Weep

I know all things must end; all good must pass;

And entropy will vanquish everywhere.

Existence is an insubstantial gas

Whose vapor dissipates into the air.

I know the world we live in, too, is doomed:

That as a species we have wrecked it so

That when by other hands we are exhumed

They'll wonder at our rush to meet our woe.

I know all this: that everything will fade

And all that we can do is weak and frail;

I know that everyone should live afraid

And like a baby never speak but wail;

I know it, but I cannot but believe

Despite it all, it's valuable to grieve.

Gothic Fantasia

Deep in the woods, I hear, there is a spot
Where no sun shines, and in the night the moon
Cannot be seen; where it is never hot,
Even in summer, and the cheerless tune
Of bagpipes always plays. And I have heard
The echoes of them playing as I stood
Searching it out, a tune without a word
Eerily screeching through the darkened wood.
It struck me standing, and I bent my ear,
Believing that the deep glade must be near:
I stood as rooted as the trees around,
Willing the sound to echo forth again
But all was silent, as the ceaseless pound
Of my own heart filled up the open glen.

On Turns

It occurred to me today, as I was teaching my class about sonnets, that a key factor in a successful sonnet is the use of the turn. The turn is a part of a sonnet I have not yet written about here in any depth, but it is intimately bound up in the content, form, and meaning of a sonnet. The turn(s) is (are) where the sonnet differentiates itself from other forms, because the turn is where the movement happens.

A sonnet is not a good sonnet unless it takes advantage of the opportunity that every sonnet rhyme scheme provides for a turn: a change from setting up or describing a situation to developing that situation. I use "developing" intentionally, as there are many ways to develop a situation: a reversal, a continuation, an explanation, a narrowing of focus, a broadening of focus, etc. What is crucial here is that something changes: that the sonnet is not static, but progressive.

The standard place for a turn is where the rhyme scheme changes. This can be a big bold change like in a traditional Petrarchan or Italian sonnet (ABBAABBA/CDECDE or CDCDCD with the turn at the end of the AB section). It can be a last-minute whiplash like in a traditional Shakespearean or English sonnet (ABABCDCDEFEF/GG with a turn before the couplet). There can be a series of smaller turns, as in the same form (ABAB/CDCD/EFEF/GG with turns after each change in rhyme). And I find that having this alignment between rhyme and turn is actually a good sign of a well-crafted sonnet: there is no ironclad rule that says a sonnet cannot have its turn where there isn't a change in rhyme, but doing so allows the rhyme scheme to pull double duty. This can apply to other elements as well: metrical substitutions or changes, for instance, can also be a turn's best friend.

What I wanted to focus on here is that the turn often makes less traditional rhyme schemes more interesting. Take, for example, a Spenserian sonnet (ABABBCBCCDCDEE). This has quatrains like a Shakespearean sonnet, but the rhyme scheme links across them by the reuse of the same rhyme, creating couplets. This means that a Spenserian sonnet flows together until the climactic EE rhyme at the end, offering the potential for an extremely potent couplet turn, even more powerful than in a Shakespearean sonnet. A similar effect appears in Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey's early sonnet "The soote season," which has the unusual rhyme scheme ABABABABABABCC. The sense of motion is different than in the Spenserian rhyme scheme, but the core element of heavily emphasizing the couplet turn remains, if anything made stronger by the use of only one rhyme pair before the turn and by refusing all couplets before the end as well.

A different but equally potent effect can come in poems with multiple turns, as in the 4/4/4/2 Shakespearean example but also in other forms as well. Sir Thomas Wyatt's "Whoso list to hunt," another early sonnet in English, finds a hybrid form derived from Petrarch with an ABBAABBACDCDEE rhyme scheme. This provides for two turns: as in Petrarch, between AB and CD rhyme schemes, but also between the CD and the final EE couplet. Petrarch's own poem on which this is based (Sonnet 190) does a softer version of this by having a mini-turn in the middle of the sestet between the CDE and CDE rhyme pairs. This is an advantage of the CDECDE ending to a Petrarchan sonnet (as opposed to CDCDCD) in that the two repetitions of the three-line CDE unit is more congenial to this kind of mini-turn than the three repetitions of a two-line CD unit. It's not that a turn can't be two lines (see: every couplet turn ever) but rather that the CD units would require an additional turn (between each pair), which is harder to achieve.

There is no reason, of course, why this turning element in the sonnet should be limited to traditional rhyme schemes (though as I hope the above shows, "traditional" covers a wide range already). Shelly's "Ozymandias" is ABABACDCEDEFEF, a decidedly untraditional scheme, and main two turns come exactly where you'd expect: at the hiccup in the rhyme, the E ("And on the pedestal these words appear") and at the final turn to the F rhyme ("Nothing beside remains. Round the decay"). Changes in rhyme can overlap with turns wherever they are found. Want to write a sonnet with seven different rhymes and put a turn every time you switch? More power to you (it's going to be hard though). Want to put your couplet at the start and then run four quatrains of turns after it? Enjoy! The central idea though, remains: a good sonnet has interesting turn(s), where the ideas shift and the poem moves, and those turn(s) should line up with the changing rhyme. This is a classic example of how craft meets meaning, and of how the tools of the sonnet can contribute to the forms' poetic effects.

Ecclesiastes

Every piece of news is bad;

I cringe before I turn the page

To ward against the dark and sad,

And bank the omnipresent rage.

I try to turn my face away,

Read from the corner of my eye;

I fear the horrors of the day.

It is a struggle not to cry.

Every email feels a threat

I hate to turn my laptop on

For dread of being overset

Because my confidence is gone

That told me once the world won't burn.

But now it will. It is our turn.

Falling

The sky above is brooding with despair
Promising nothing quite so much as rain.
An autumn chill breaks through the summer air;
A tumbleweed of leaves drifts down the lane
Until it smacks against a car, and breaks,
Shedding itself into the gutter. Light
Diffuses out of nowhere, and so makes
No shadows. It is neither day nor night.
A strange uncertain silence has descended:
No squirrels, no birds, no people break the peace.
Only the acorns on the roof have rended
The empty quiet: and they too soon cease.
Time is suspended. Clocks don't tick. Yet I
Must wander on beneath the saddened sky.

Urban Pastoral

The curtains haven't opened up all day
The little dog thrusts out a curious nose
Hoping someone new will come and play.
She settles down. The curtains slowly close.
A cat with matted hair struts up the walk,
Pauses and licks herself, then ambles by.
The nose emerges in a sudden shock
Of righteous indignation, and an eye
Glares outward with a growl. But the cat
Ignores it, wanders off, and disappears.
The nose retracts, and leaves the curtain flat
Except a corner, where two little ears
Are barely visible, to listen for
The cat, should she again threaten the door.