Day 7 of Sonnetnado!
Let’s talk about rhythm for a second. For the uninitiated, a sonnet, along with being 14 lines long and following a rhyme scheme, also follows a rhythmic structure we call iambic pentameter, which is a 10 syllable line with five accents, the stressed syllable follows the unstressed, so tapping out the rhythm of an iambic pentameter line sounds like: du DUH du DUH du DUH du DUH du DUH. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day.” Here is another feature of the sonnet that is often fudged or simply jettisoned for other choices, because, while English is well suited to an iambic meter, it’s not always possible or preferable. But in this particular sonnet of mine, I made the somewhat unconventional choice of combining two iambic feet with two feet that form a kind of triplet: DUH du DUH, DUH du DUH. That triplet thing is called an amphimacer, a word before today I honestly did not know! You can also call it a cretic, also news to me. Learning stuff! See if you can find the amphimacer (or the cretic) in the poem!
Additionally, I read somewhere that trigger warnings produce their own triggers, as if to say, the actual trigger warning does more harm than would the thing that is supposed to be triggering. So, here’s my Trigger Warning Trigger: today’s poem contains expletives, you know, naughty language. Don’t read if you’re easily offended.
Seven
We should have really seen it up ahead.
You trust someone and let them off the hook
For things you wouldn’t be caught dead
Letting go, like please, let me have a look
at the fucking receipts: for the stuff, the work.
And let us know, by god, if things will change
Before you add to the bill, like a jerk.
We liked this guy, there was nothing strange
about him, so personable, and kind,
And still in him there’s nothing devious:
Incompetence, the word that comes to mind.
And did we check on his work previous?
The mistake is partly ours, and bad luck:
the fuck the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.
michael jarmer 