Tag Archives: sonnet

#461: My teacher Parker J. Palmer wrote or said . . .

Today’s sonnet breaches perhaps the one GOLDEN RULE of sonnet making. It’s 15 lines long. Three quatrains and a tercet! I was feeling rather naughty, although, I am nearly 100% sure that I am not the first one to write a thing that’s not 14 lines long and call it a sonnet. I don’t knowContinue reading “#461: My teacher Parker J. Palmer wrote or said . . .”

#457: Let’s have more buildings about songs and food . . .

The first line of today’s sonnet is an allusion to the title of the second album by Talking Heads, 1978’s More Songs About Buildings and Food. I think it’s one of the finest album titles in rock history, but you’ll notice that I’ve spun the thing a little bit. I was thinking about how architectureContinue reading “#457: Let’s have more buildings about songs and food . . .”

#456: I camped in the rain, no, don’t you worry . . .

Eighteen I camped in the rain, no, don’t you worry,I was dry, comfortable, sometimes tipsyWith drink, but mostly with some poemsAnd an atmospheric river rising.It hadn’t let up for two straight days,So I stayed inside to read and writeAnd for meals I visited the camp siteNext door, where my sister with bad kneesAnd a brother-in-lawContinue reading “#456: I camped in the rain, no, don’t you worry . . .”

#455: Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello . . .

Day Seventeen of Sonnetpalooza finds me writing a poem about music, a thing I do from time to time, as music, it turns out, is one of the central concerns of my life–listening, making, recording, performing. Hardly a day goes by when I am not doing one of those four things at some point orContinue reading “#455: Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello . . .”

#454: Let’s hear your argument that a civilian . . .

Okay, today all the rules for the sonnet, except for one, have been thrown completely under the bus. Desperate times require desperate measures. I don’t have a lot to say about this one, as I hope it speaks for itself, but I will give you a bit of a heads up about the subject matterContinue reading “#454: Let’s hear your argument that a civilian . . .”

#453: If I can go one-hundred days without . . .

Fifteen If I can go one-hundred days withoutAlcohol, do you think I might be ableTo go a week without social media,Or the internet for that same matter?All that digital stuff has becomeLike the cordyceps in The Last Of Us,So inextricably intertwined in our livesSo as to make extrication seem nighImpossible. Maybe not even nigh. Again, likeContinue reading “#453: If I can go one-hundred days without . . .”

#452: The headline of a HuffPost article . . .

Another cockamamie idea I had once, perhaps before this nutty 30 sonnets in 30 days idea, was to write a series of poems based on idiotic news stories, or the kind of article you see nearly everyday on outlets like Huffington Post and their ilk, those pieces that either report the ridiculous, or those thinkContinue reading “#452: The headline of a HuffPost article . . .”

#451: If Walt Whitman tried to write a sonnet . . .

On day 13 of the sonnetsplosion, I find myself thinking, this is only day thirteen. We’ve got seventeen more days of this to go. And then: why did I choose to write 30 sonnets again? It’s proving more difficult than I thought it would be. Sonnet’s are a bitch, remember. Larry Levis was right onContinue reading “#451: If Walt Whitman tried to write a sonnet . . .”

#448: I may have the wrong idea about . . .

First off, on this tenth day of the festival of sonnet in celebration of National Poetry Month, I’d like to thank the curator or curators of the NaPoWriMo website for featuring yesterday’s poem on their blog. What a lovely gift to wake up to. So many of us out here in the blogosphere often, IContinue reading “#448: I may have the wrong idea about . . .”

#447: What if I moved the cushion out into . . .

Wouldn’t you know it? That on this ninth day of sonnetpalooza, the recommended prompt for the day on the glorious NaPoWriMo website is to write a sonnet!? Now there’s an assignment I can get behind! It’s Easter, and I feel the urge, almost a third of the way through National Poetry Writing Month, to switchContinue reading “#447: What if I moved the cushion out into . . .”