Sonnet variation: Sally Thomas, ‘Eventide’

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The sea unfolds itself onto the sand
Again, again. It drags its yellow hem
Across our feet and back. You hold my hand

And sing to me, the first bar of a hymn:
Abide with me. The phrase, unfinished, slides
Away into the dusk. The world’s wet rim

Keeps wrinkling on the sky. The eventide’s
Upon us now, the turning of the day,
The long slow ebb as everything subsides

Into the dark. The sea in disarray
Repeats itself. There’s nothing more to see.
The waves rush thinly in, then pull away

As, louder now, you sing, Abide with me,
Above the slow unfolding of the sea.

*****

Sally Thomas writes: “Sometime in the spring, Ken Gordon of The Sonneteer mentioned to me that he’d love for me to send him something, and I said that I didn’t have anything to send. I’d just published a big sonnet sequence that I had been writing over a number of years, but I wasn’t writing sonnets currently. Well, said Ken, I’ll wait. And because he was waiting, I thought I might as well make a new stab at something. I like terza rima and the various ways you can play with tying it off, and I had Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night” at the forefront of my mind, because I’d had my spring workshop students read it. This poem fairly quickly fell into terza rima and, once it had done that, it wrote itself.”

‘Eventide’ was first published in The Sonneteer

Sally Thomas is the author of two books of poetry, Motherland and Among the Living, both published by Able Muse Press, as well as an anthology, Christian Poetry in America Since 1940, a novel, and a collection of short stories. She is Visiting Professor of Poetry in the low-residency MFA program at the University of St. Thomas, Houston, and a regular contributor to the Substack newsletter Poems Ancient and Modern. 

“#Sunset at the #laxmanpurbeach #neil #island #andaman . Thanks a lot to the #lovely #couple . #silhoutte #beach #sea #dusk #soi #streetsofindia #_mobilography_ #mypixeldiary #photographers_of_india #soi #indiaclicks #igramming_india” by KasoKaishyap is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Len Krisak, ‘A Life’

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The streets, albeit not with gold, were paved,
The path both broad and even; wide the way
And easy, with no uniform to don.
By almost nothing was he put upon.
Old age had been foreseen, and so he saved,
The modicum matched with its rainy day.
The sheets were clean, as were the neat clothes worn
From bawling babe, to teen, to man, and on.
Few were the oaths required to be sworn,
And almost nothing had been sacrificed,
Or found worthwhile, or worth the dying for.
As to the depredations brought by war,
None had been undergone. All things sufficed,
Since almost nothing crucial had been needed.
Yes, easy, broad, and even, he conceded,
Though through it all, what all of it had meant
He couldn’t say. No, not in any event.

*****

Len Krisak writes: “the speaker, slightly morose (?), confesses both to a life of no particular hardship and to an inability to decide on the meaning or quality of such an existence.”

‘A Life’ was first published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

Len Krisak’s translation of the Aeneid appeared in 2016. His translation of the Inferno will be out from Routledge in September, as will his own poems, Magpie. The past winner of the Richard Wilbur and Robert Frost prizes, he is a four-time champion on Jeopardy!

“empty suits” by paul goyette is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Sonnet: Paul Burgess, ‘Sea Turtles’

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The cruelest welcome party greets their birth.
Instead of feeding at a mother’s teat,
they’re stretched upon a table for the mirth
of birds and crabs that hunger for their meat.
No time for toddling, sprinting from the first,
the lucky reach a second party where
their thinning band of comrades is immersed
in pools of creatures glad to eat them rare.

The world’s so honest with them from the start —
no lullabies, no fairy tales believed,
no revelation of the brutal part,
no sudden grief at having been deceived.
They learn so young of running for one’s life
to earn the chance to swim in seas of strife.

*****

Paul Burgess writes: “Even though I’ve spent much of my adult life far from the ocean, my hometown is Hilton Head Island, which is a barrier island off the southern part of the U.S.’s East Coast. There are many provisions there to protect the loggerhead sea turtle nesting sites and to avoid disturbing the hatchlings scrambling to get to the ocean. However, even when humans refrain from making things worse, the reality of what the turtles face from the second they hatch is one of the bleakest existential scenes nature has ever produced. The image and its symbolic potential suddenly hit me one day out of the blue, and I had to write this poem.”

‘Sea Turtles’ was originally published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

Paul Burgess is the sole proprietor of a business in Lexington, Kentucky that offers ESL classes in addition to English, Japanese, and Spanish-language translation and interpretation services. He has recently contributed work to The Road Not Taken, Blue Unicorn, Light, The Orchards, Pulsebeat, Snakeskin, Lighten Up Online, and several other publications. https://paulburgesswritingandlanguage.blog/

“seagull eating baby turtle” by maveric2003 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Janice D. Soderling, ‘Lost Friends’

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It’s sad to lose a friend, you know,
In bloom of youth,
In healthy glow,
Full of vigor, ethics, truth.
It’s sad to lose that friend.

It’s sad to lose a friend of old,
His fumbling brain,
Old jokes retold,
Full of misery, aches and pain.
It’s sad to lose that friend.

But sadder still to lose a friend
To politics,
The ugly end.
To hate and scorn and fascist tricks.
Oh, how I miss that friend.

*****

Janice D. Soderling writes: “This is one of those poems that sometimes comes in a rush and you have to grab a pencil to write it down before it disappears. But of course I had been ruminating, pondering; who has not in these divisive times? We are many who have lost a dear friend, perhaps even a family member, someone who once was compassionate and kind and fun to be with, but suddenly, or gradually, has become unrecognizable, full of blame and contempt, even hate, for the Other. Not for a person, but for a vague collective, the Other.”

‘Lost Friends’ was published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

Janice D. Soderling has poems, short stories, and flash in many literary journals and anthologies. Her most recent poetry collection is Naming the Names which includes “Lost Friends.” Soon to be released is Short Circuits, about one hundred very short poems, none longer than twelve lines. Both collections are published under the Kultivera Production imprint.

“A Single Leaf” by Miss C.J. is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Lindsay McLeod, ‘Blind Date’

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It’s a roll of the dice
it’s the turn of a card
makes me feel Jesus Christ
it shouldn’t be this hard,

to find someone who’s nice
and attractive to me
but on this carousel
I’ve found only… let’s see
 
Trace was full blown racist
I suspected Venus had a penis,
Enid was a children’s author
ironic, Enid was the meanest,
 
dear Scarlet near insisted
we should hop straight into bed
but I resisted because her eyes
rolled round like marbles in her head
 
met Quasimodo by the tower
then there was Cerberus by the gate,
met Manson then met Alice
(Alice, she was running late)
 
mother Mary was still in mourning
she outlined all she chose to hate,
next came Tessie (that got messy)
who posted me her ‘target’ weight
 
nasty Stella the astrologer
could not believe that I’d refuse,
‘You must have Neptune late in retrograde.’
I told her, ‘That’s not it… it’s you.’
 
Some were happy, some were damaged
(and now I know that I am too),
some were easy, some were hard
some wanted things I couldn’t do.
 
So why put myself out there
why should I bother, even try?
 
I suppose it’s because,
initial hellos can be awkward
but it’s better than
living inside of goodbye.

*****

Lindsay McLeod writes: “‘Blind Date’ was my attempt to chronicle my search for love via the internet with a humorous spin. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it without some small warning of its darker side.”

‘Blind Date’ was first published in Rat’s Ass Review.

Lindsay McLeod lives down the Port in South Australia with his cattle dog, Mary. His writing has won awards and been published all over (in spite of rhyme and reason) and found homes most recently with THE HUMAN WRITERS, MENISCUS, EPHEMERAL ELEGIES, TIPTON POETRY, SNAKESKIN, PULSEBEAT and THE MARTELLO. Forced into early retirement, Lindsay is said to be considering a life of crime to support his poetry habit.

“Blind Date 2 with Ahmed the African American Attorney” by bbcworldservice is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Max Gutmann, ‘The Self’

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The self I love
and try to be

is fashioned by a deeper me,
a me that’s crafted deeper still,

where things like impulse, taste, and will
derive, a dimly curtained core
of which I fathom little more

than that I fathom little, and
that I will never understand,
unfairly blank, unfinely bleak,

a dark obstruction as I seek
a fuller understanding of

the self I am
and try to love.

*****

Max Gutmann writes: “”The Self” strikes me as a strong piece of light verse, light because it’s almost entirely intellectual.It relies on form: its single-sentence, mirror-image construction in which the  beginning and end of each half reflect (on) the end and beginning of the other.”

‘The Self’ was originally published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

Max Gutmann has contributed to dozens of publications including New Statesman, Able Muse, and Cricket. His plays have appeared throughout the U.S. and have been well-reviewed (see maxgutmann.com). His book There Was a Young Girl from Verona sold several copies.
Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, A WordPress.com Website.

“Love yourself” by QuinnDombrowski is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Sonnets: David M. Katz, ‘Two Sonnets for Patrick Stewart, who read Shakespeare online during Covid’

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I.
You slow it down and speak the speech from home
As if admitting no impediments,
No infectious thoughts into your room,
No intrusions, anxious sentiments,
Just cadences of comfort from your couch.
As close as that. Yet you are far enough
To thwart contamination borne of touch,
Random droplets in the air, a cough.
Every day I come to sit with you
To put this ghastly time and place aside,
Inject your native lightness here anew
Into my thoughts of those who may have died,
Or may be dying, or contaminate
Those in the street who can’t self-isolate.
II.
Summoning the bard into your lungs
Might be your day’s initial antidote
Against the plague. Then, climbing up the rungs
To the apex of the ague in the throat
Of your talent, holding his lines there
As if to muster powder for a shot
At wiping out the virus with a prayer
Or spell enacted in a sacred spot,
You step into the spirit of the thing.
You’ve got us where you want, and we’ve got you,
Artful doctor. You begin to sing.
We feel as if we just might make it through.
We step into your seance every day.
You gesture, and the plague has gone away.

*****

David M. Katz writes: “These two poems are part of “These Masks,” a “diary” of 20 Shakespearean sonnets I wrote from March to May 2020, during the very start of the pandemic. When I began, I resolved to read one of Shakespeare’s sonnets a day, along with Helen Vendler’s commentary on it in her book, The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and then write a sonnet responding to what was happening in the world. Before I wrote the sonnets published here (#s 4 and 5 in the sequence) I found that the great actor Patrick Stewart had begun reading a Shakespeare sonnet a day online from his home. I had previously found Stewart’s 1995 performance in the role of Prospero in The Tempest in New York’s Central Park an inspiration to me poetically and, now, there he was, a bright light during the dark days of the plague, reading to us intimately, every day. The sonnets are in praise of that great joy.”

The ‘Sonnets for Patrick Stewart’ were first published in the Sonnet Scroll of The Poetry Porch.

David M. Katz is the author of five books of poetry—The Biographer, In Praise of Manhattan, Stanzas on Oz, and Claims of Home, all published by Dos Madres Press, and The Warrior in the Forest (House of Keys). Poems of his have appeared in Able Muse, Poetry, The Paris Review, The Hudson Review, and THINK. He is a co-host of the Morningside Poetry Series in Manhattan and posts frequently on his website, The David M. Katz Poetry Blog. He recently starred in Gully’s Paradise, a feature-length film by Shalom Gorewitz.

Photo: ‘Patrick Stewart Performs the Complete Sonnets of William Shakespeare’ is an unabridged audio book from Simon & Schuster.

Resources, updated: 21 formal-only (or nearly so) magazines and presses

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An email enquiry that I received about formal-only poetry magazines makes me think I should update my resources list with that focus.

Able Muse – US magazine and press; website is not always completely current
Asses of Parnassus – Canada: short, witty, formal poems, snarky is fine, hosted on Tumblr.
Blue Unicorn – US: print only; prefers formal but will take other work
Chained Muse – US: prefers classical themes. Dodgy political bias
Crab Orchard Review – US
Extreme Formal series of anthologies from Rhizome Press. US.
Grand Little Things – US: “Returning versification to verse”
Light – US: large biannual issue, also the home of weekly topical light verse
Lighten Up Online (LUPO) – UK: light formal verse, quarterly
Lyric – US: “Founded in 1921, The Lyric is the oldest magazine in North America in continuous publication devoted to traditional poetry.” Lyrical, positive… flowers and countryside.
New Verse Review – US
Poetry Porch – US: lyrical
Pulsebeat Poetry Journal – US
Road Not Taken: The Journal of Formal Poetry – US: hard to find online because of its name, but a good small publication for formal and semi-formal verse.
Snakeskin – UK: probably the longest-established poetry zine in the world; no longer 100% formal, but still a great favourite.
Sonnet Scroll – US: a sonnet-specialized alcove on the Poetry Porch
Sonneteer – US: substack emails
The HyperTexts (THT) – US: an enormous assemblage of verse from all times and places; the editor’s personal preference for formal and leftist verse doesn’t rule out selections by Walt Whitman or Ronald Reagan! The works are mostly republications, but if you have a body of strong work the editor may be interested in creating a page for you.
Think – US
Verse-Virtual – US: a monthly publication for a caring community of poets
and finally:
Wergle-Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, No Fee – US: $3,750 in prize money

“Lyme Park, Cheshire – Formal garden” by reds on tour is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Sonnet variant: Michael R. Burch, ‘Once’

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for Beth

Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name …

Once when her breasts were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips did more wildly insist …

Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant …

Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed—
this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.

*****

Michael R. Burch writes: “Once” was submitted to The Lyric in 1999, and elicited these comments from editor Jean Mellichamp Milliken: “. . . I actually loved “Once” (better than ‘Twice,’ even), but you need a resolution—it leaves the reader hanging . . . please, please finish it. It’s such a wonderful, fiery, lyrical piece!”
The original poem was intended to leave the reader hanging. There was no resolution at the time it was written. The challenge of writing an ending couplet was intriguing, however, and “Once” was accepted (in its revised form with an ending couplet) and appeared in The Lyric along with “At Once,” “Twice” and “The Leveler.”

Michael R. Burch’s poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals, taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 23 languages, incorporated into three plays and four operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to classical, 86 times by composers.

“Sand Dunes, Socotra Is” by Rod Waddington is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Sonnet: Richard Fleming, ‘The Attic’

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The attic, once unreachable, taboo
in childhood, is a temple laid to waste.
I climb the ladder, face the overdue
clear-out of debris with a mild distaste.
A View-Master, kaleidoscope, a kite,
a rocking-horse in much need of repair,
a reel-to-reel recorder I’d recite
poems into as though speaking them ‘on air’.
I dust them off, then pack them in a case
and glimpse in a chipped mirror on a shelf,
the look of an intruder on his face,
a fellow who can only be myself,
the last one left, unsportingly miscast
as tomb-raider, despoiler of the past.

*****

‘The Attic’ was first published in a set of ten semi-autobiographical poems in The High Window, where Richard Fleming was the Featured Poet.

Richard Fleming is an Irish-born poet and humorist based in Guernsey, a Channel Island between Britain and France. Widely regarded as one of the island’s foremost literary voices, his versatile work blends lyricism, sharp wit, emotional depth, and a strong sense of place. Drawing from his Northern Irish roots and adopted home, his poetry and prose explore love, loss, nostalgia, identity, and modern life. Collections include Strange Journey (2012), held in the National Poetry Library, and Stone Witness (Blue Ormer) featuring the BBC-commissioned title poem. His work can be found on
Facebook https://www.facebook.com richard.fleming.92102564/
or Bard at Bay www.redhandwriter.blogspot.com

“VIEW-MASTER” by Kim Hanwool is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.