More Schneiders, more sonnets! Jessica showed me this poem a while ago and I asked if I could post it. As you will see, it looks quite different from the sonnet I posted of Dan's--it is the form that keeps on morphing.
Sonnet for my Pretty Skirt
*for Lynn Crosbie
Open poppy, so often you have been
inferred, spinning solid under trees, mist
entered among grasses, greeting the hanging hems
of knees she puts her hands upon.
Raise it
simply, carrying those quick legs, now owned
by lace, denim, whatever wants to name it-
skirt. Moving no more the extension of heads,
they piece apart this neck of worn-in shirts,
as they look to gardens new in their beds.
Lifting, 1950 Hollywood flirts
make more than names, as well as being kissed
by air, outliving past everything grown
in smiles, in smell, in attention sent and sent,
naming her- skirt. That owns all compliment.
Copyright © by Jessica Schneider
Aside from the dedication, the title also tips its hat to the Crosbie poem titled "Skirt, My Pretty Name," but otherwise this poem is very un-Crosbian, both in its tone and subject matter (not a serial killer to be found!) and in the skill with the form.
This one is kind of interesting in that the end rhymes are scattered throughout the poem--mist/kissed and owned/grown are not in close proximity. The dangling "Raise it" makes the poem seem like it has 3 stanzas of 5 lines, and it provides a match for the subsequent "it" and gives the near-rhyme with 'been' and 'upon.' 'Hems' the odd man out, in terms of matching end rhymes--but you can see it is musicked in its context, with the recurring 'h' and 'm' sounds.
A good use of repeated sounds throughout gives the poem its nice music--"open poppy, so often," hanging/hems/hands, inferred/entered, lifting/1950, and the word 'skirt' and its interaction with its like end-rhymes. There is also the nice image of the poppy "spinning solid under trees" (the thing that 'hooked' me upon first read) and the playful line about the extension of heads and the necks of worn-in shirts. Jessica knows how to delight with the tightness of her...sonnets!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Many, many thanks. From both me and my skirt.
I had to try to remember, "hems" is supposed to off/slant rhyme with "been"
It's Emily Dickinsonish in slant rhyme/off rhyme for sure.
Cool, I got caught up in looking for 'exact' matches. The thing with the 'hems' word is that there are lots of musical 'connectors' surrounding it, whether the immediate 'h' sounds or the way the 'm' echoes afterwards, with simply/denim. The music in a lot of your poems almost make any end rhymes seem invisible--when I first looked at your "In The Tightness..." sonnet way back, I didn't even notice what you were doing with the end rhymes, because of the flow of the music through and from each line (plus getting caught up in the content of what you were saying). Even with this one, trying to figure out what you were doing with the end rhymes was an afterthought.
Thank you for noticing all that. The one thing ED did (sounds like I might be talking about Erectile Dysfunction) was open up the possibility for slant rhymes and pushing the limits that way.
A lot of writers will follow some classical form, sticking to all exact end rhymes and that's fine if it's good. Most of the time they just want to fill out the form without having anything new or original to say. They're trite and generic in a way. Dan also opened that up for me as well, as far as his own sonnets. And certainly Hayden's famous one does that as well.
Yes, what Hayden did with the rhymes was a more subtle approach, which matches the subtlety with the subject matter and the music.
Hayden will be reappearing in my writing soon...
Post a Comment