In the spirit of April Fools day, here’s the first sonnet of the month. It’s kind of a political thing, which surprised me. I had the first line and had no idea where I would go with it.
My standards for what constitutes a sonnet is simply 14 lines with a rough 10 syllable construction. When I started doing the daily sonnet in 2023, at first I was loyal to most of the conventions of the Shakespearean form, but over time I augmented and then jettisoned most of the rhyme and became far less strict about the iambic pentameter. I found it difficult, and I find it difficult still, to abandon the rhyming couplet at the end. It’s just so satisfying. I predict, though, that this month might find me making more radical adjustments. We’ll see.
It takes a fool to know a fool, they say . . .
It takes a fool to know a fool, they say.
It takes one to know one, we used to say.
There’s something to that old adage, something
grounded in the soft sciences. It’s true,
we often see ourselves in others; this
is both why we hate and why we fall in love.
And yet I make the claim that exceptions
rule the day, because when I see a fool,
especially the ones in the clown car
that passes these days for the republican
side of the aisle, I don’t recognize my
own foolishness, even if I dig deep.
I am certain I’ve no such foolish hat,
I’ve clarity to say: I am not that.
michael jarmer 