Tag Archives: sonnet

Sonnet: Jane Blanchard, ‘Between Rounds’

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Year after year the very best in golf
head to Augusta. Fans come, too, and those
who live and work here either take time off
to travel or adopt a Masters’ pose.
One local woman hosts a party for
alumni of our alma mater. I
attended with my husband once. The hors
d’oeuvres were delicious, drinks well worth a try.
Invitees wandered through the house into
the garden, where the talk had lots of fizz.
One liquored man when asked “What do you do?”
replied: “I fly for Delta—soon to Rome.”
My husband looked my way as I looked his;
we both were more than glad to stay at home.

*****

Congratulations to Jane Blanchard, who has just had her collection ‘Furthermore’ published by Kelsay Books. (Blurbs by Steve Knepper among others can be found at her Amazon listing.) I asked her for a favourite poem to represent the book, and she sent me ‘Between Rounds’, originally published in Valley Voices: A Literary Review.

A native Virginian, Jane Blanchard lives and writes in Georgia. Her collections with Kelsay Books include Metes and Bounds (2023) and Furthermore (2025).

Shakespearean Sonnet: J.D. Smith, ‘Drunkard Watched from an Upper Floor’

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His weaving adds up to a hapless cloth
on both sides of the street: just short of falling,
he staggers, with a stop to vomit froth.
He’d go far safer if he took to crawling.
A brace of cans, though, and a paper sack
are taking up the hands his legs could use,
as gales inside his head tell him to tack
and sway but hold his cargo fast, to choose
the service of his thirst above all pride
or fear that he might offer easy prey.
The spirits he has taken as his guide
make him loop back to take another way.

Ten minutes pass. He’s near where he began,
reminding me of when I’ve been that man.

*****

J.D. Smith writes: “Between typical youthful indiscretions and self-medicating for untreated depression in earlier life, I have had some tipsy times. The obvious negatives aside, recalling those experiences has made me more sympathetic than I would naturally be in contemplating others’ frailty. The rhetoric of the Elizabethan sonnet structure, moreover, compelled me to bring precision to the experience of seeing oneself in another.”

J.D. Smith has published six books of poetry, most recently the light verse collection Catalogs for Food Lovers, and he has received a Fellowship in Poetry from the United States National Endowment for the Arts. This poem is from The Killing Tree (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Smith’s first fiction collection, Transit, was published in December 2022. His other books include the essay collection Dowsing and Science, and his seventh collection, The Place That Is Coming to Us, will be published by Broadstone Books in 2025. Smith works in Washington, DC, where he lives with his wife Paula Van Lare and their rescue animals.
X: @Smitroverse

Photo: “Onward Ever Downwards” by Stephan Geyer is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.


Barbara Lydecker Crane, ‘My Letter to Sonnet Insurance’

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    A billboard seen in Toronto read Sonnet Insurance.

Dear Sonnet staff: I’m eager for your plan!
I’ll want an underwriter old-school-based,
Petrarchan or like Larkin in his taste:
he’ll speak my terms. I’ll benefit from your man
adjusting rhymes, making meter strict,
assuming the risk of an errant anapest.
Does your firm ensure I’ll stand time’s test?
Do you pull strings to have each effort picked
by a premier publication? One quick draft
in the condition of a pre-existing sonnet,
and the English-speaking world might dote upon it.
But truth be told, my first attempts aren’t craft.
Sonnet Insurance, kindly file this letter;
insure me later, when it’s written better.

*****

Barbara Lydecker Crane write: “I am a shameless pun lover; seeing this billboard, though, certainly begged for some.  “My Letter to Sonnet Insurance” was published a few years back in Light.“

In 2024 Barbara Lydecker Crane won the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Crown Contest and First Prize in the Helen Schaible Contest, modern sonnet category. She has twice been a finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize. Able Muse recently published her fourth collection, You Will Remember Me. She enjoys making and looking at art, travel, and her family, which includes four fast-growing grandchildren and one near-perfect husband: he does not read poetry.

Sonnet: Shamik Banerjee, ‘To Mr. Banerjee (Senior)’

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Without black tea, his mornings never start.
The newspaper should be upon his bed;
Not finding it will make his eyes all red.
As if examining a piece of art,
He reads each page. Loud oohs such as ‘My heart!’,
‘Another swindle!’, or ‘So many dead!’,
Are heard as if the earth’s weight’s on his head.
Harrumphing, he jumps to the Cultures part.
A pensioner today, back in those days,
He was a banker. Now, he saunters, plays
Carom with me, or spends the noontimes planting
Camellias —- a work he finds enchanting.
At times, he sits before some dusty files,
Puts on the glasses, thumbs through them, and smiles.

*****

First published by Borderless Journal.

Shamik Banerjee is a poet from Assam, India. Some of his recent publications include Spelt, Ink Sweat & Tears, Modern Reformation, San Antonio Review, The Society of Classical Poets, Third Wednesday, and Amethyst Review among others.

Photo: “Bentley Tea Cup” by snap713 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Using form: Shakespearean sonnet: Susan McLean, ‘Foreshadowing’

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You’re a holiday.
—”Holiday,” The Bee Gees

One month from when you met me, when you brought
the first of many gifts, a 45
of plaintive praise and longing, who’d have thought
that forty-five years later we’d survive
on weekends, holidays, and summer breaks,
a foretaste of the end in every start,
anticipation ballasted with aches
as we put love on hold and live apart?

You are a holiday. The working week
unspools like toilet paper from a roll.
My attitude goes airborne when we speak,
and when we meet, my heart swoops like a shoal
of fish. Would we have lost this giddy glow,
living together? Better not to know.

*****

Susan McLean writes: “It makes me feel ancient to realize that for younger readers I will have to explain that a 45 was a record with one song on each side, which played on a record player at 45 revolutions per minute. Love poems themselves tend to feel old-fashioned these days, though this one is about a relatively modern problem, the long-term, long-distance relationship in which both people are employed full time at jobs far apart from one another. The form, a Shakespearean sonnet, mirrors the content, in that the rhymes are separated from one another until the end, when they are reunited. The poem was originally published in the online journal of female formalist poets Mezzo Cammin, and it later appeared in my second book of poetry, The Whetstone Misses the Knife.

Photo: “File:45 record.png” by laurianne is marked with CC0 1.0.

Sonnet: Jenna Le, ‘Guilty Pleasures’

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Half of my favorite works of fanfiction
are stories that anesthetize the pain
produced by the original’s depiction
of harsh events: the person whom the main
character loved who met a tragic end
is resurrected in the fan-made sequel;
the star-crossed couple gets a chance to mend,
and consummate, a bond that has no equal.

The other half are stories that prolong
the pain and also boost its magnitude
deliciously until my nerves all tingle:
near-misses multiply, and roadblocks throng;
epiphanies loom close yet still elude;
misunderstandings keep our heroes single.

*****

Jenna Le writes: “I believe there’s been a fair amount of published scholarship in recent years about fanfiction and fanfiction culture. I admit I’m not up-to-date on any of it, really, and am only really conversant with such aspects of it as I have personally chanced to encounter. I can only say there seems to have been recent movement toward increased legitimization of the field: in 2019, one of the prestigious Hugo Awards for speculative fiction was awarded to a body of fan-work/transformational work, for instance. Just as for other flavors of fiction, there are probably infinitely many ways to classify and subclassify fanfiction. Novelist Naomi Novik‘s work and interviews are maybe a good place to start looking, for people curious to learn more.”

Jenna Le (jennalewriting.com) is the author of three full-length poetry collections, Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011), A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2017), and Manatee Lagoon (Acre Books, 2022), https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/M/bo185843950.html The sonnet ‘Guilty Pleasures’ was first published in Snakeskin.

Photo: “guilty pleasure” by ohmann alianne is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Sonnet: Rick Mullin, ‘Shrine to Satan’

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The neighbor’s child has built a muddy shrine
to Satan in our yard. And I’m supposed
to cut the lawn? OK, but look at those
croquet clubs that she used (good God, they’re mine)
to pound her pentagrams of chicken bone
into the ground. The handles are unscrewed
from all the hammer heads. It’s kind of shrewd
the way she placed that PlayskoolTM telephone.

Still, little girls should not touch garden tools
or take the plastic rake out of the shed–
she’s tied it with those jump ropes to the tree.
A shattered flower pot. The Barbie head.
Horrific how this child has learned the rules
of Belial for sculpting in debris.

*****

Rick Mullin writes: “The little girl, A., is a friend of our family and was one of three girls that spent most days playing in our yard. One day they split up, each doing their own thing in their own corner of the yard. The Shrine to Satan, as I called it, was crafted by A. The architect of the horror described in this poem is getting married today.”

Rick Mullin’s poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including American Arts Quarterly, Measure, The New Criterion, The Dark Horse, The Raintown Review, Epiphany, and Rabbit Ears: TV Poems. ‘Shrine to Satan’ is from his chapbook “Aquinas Flinched”, Exot books, 2008. His books include Soutine and Sonnets from the Voyage of the Beagle (Dos Madres Press, 2012 and 2014), Lullaby and Wheel (Kelsay Books, 2019), and Huncke (second edition, Exot Books, 2021). He is a painter and retired journalist living in northern New Jersey. His website is rickmullin.com and his art blog is onlyofobjects.wordpress.com

Photo: “Little girl playing with a kitten and dolls.” by simpleinsomnia is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Sonnet: Gail White, ‘A Visit on All Saints Day’

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Hello. I’ve brought your favorite flowers again.
How is going under there, my dead?
On this side, we’re no better off than when
you walked beside us. (Yes, I know I said
the same last year.) The human race is not
improvable. Ask any saint you meet.
We’ve gone to war again without a thought.
Our leaders shuffle bribes, our heroes cheat.
Your children haven’t turned out awfully well,
but who expected it? You’re not to blame.
They’ll manage, and nobody burns in hell.
Goodbye for now. I’m always glad I came.
I make no promises about next year,
but one way or another, I’ll be here.

*****

Gail White writes: “I wrote this while living in New Orleans, where the dead are buried above ground (mostly) because the city is below sea level.  All Saints Day is still a big deal, when the family tomb gets a new coat of whitewash and flowers are placed on every grave.  It’s time to reflect on family and faith and our all ending up in the same place, as I’ve tried to do here.”

Gail White is the resident poet and cat lady of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Her books ASPERITY STREET and CATECHISM are available on Amazon. She is a contributing editor to Light Poetry Magazine. “Tourist in India” won the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award for 2013. Her poems have appeared in the Potcake Chapbooks ‘Tourists and Cannibals’, ‘Rogues and Roses’, ‘Families and Other Fiascoes’, ‘Strip Down’ and ‘Lost Love’. ‘A Visit on All Saints Day’ was originally published in Mezzo Cammin, and collected in her chapbook, ‘Sonnets in a Hostile World‘, also available on Amazon.

Photo: “New Orleans Cemetery DUVERHAY tomb” by Infrogmation of New Orleans is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Poem on poetry: Sonnet: Marcus Bales, ‘White Water’

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A poem is so obdurate and small
Compared to what you wanted it to say
And sometimes isn’t even close at all.
For instance, this. I’ve worked on it all day,
A metaphor for all of love’s affairs.
I failed to ride the energy it gave,
My form and balance gone. Nothing prepares
You for the wildness of the standing wave.
Possessing and possessed and then propelled
Abruptly past the point of no control
To merely peril, having once beheld
The moving stillness of it all, all whole.
Your head’s what every poem wants to split,
While you stroke hard to stay ahead of it.

*****

Marcus Bales writes: “My online pal, the poet Liam Guilar, was a kayak adventurer, sneaking across borders to paddle the most dangerous rivers in the world. I went white water rafting once. You’re stuck in cold, wet, awkward positions that often turn suddenly painful. Why people do it over and over seems not just unreasonable but cold, wet, and painful. There are exhilarating moments, but you’re still cold, wet, and out of control. I could feel in my one experience that the out of controlness might be the point. Still, it was wet and cold. Very wet. Very cold. 

“The confluence of Liam’s many tales, my paltry experience, and he and I both struggling to write poems is the impetus for this poem. I’ve often thought that maybe what it needs is a bucket of ice water suspended over the reader like a, well, like a bucket of Damocles, that sloshes over the head and down the back of the neck in order to make it work.”

Not much is known about Marcus Bales except that he lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio, and that his work has not been published in Poetry or The New Yorker. However his ‘51 Poems‘ is available from Amazon. He has been published in several of the Potcake Chapbooks (‘Form in Formless Times’).

Photo: “Kayaking through the white waters of the Gorge” by Grand River Conservation Authority is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Using form: William Trowbridge, ‘Song of the Black Hole’

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radially extracted by NASA

You can almost see Vincent Price, black-robed,
hunched above the console of a jumbo organ
in the bowels of his creaky haunted manse; or
maybe a stadium of damned souls, strobed
in lurid red and howling nettle-robed
as they plummet into Pandemonium, pore
and pith aflame. It’s no troubadour,
undoubtedly, this vast atonal gob.

As with the Roach Motel, we’d check in,
but never out—us or anything, since
it can swallow errant planets whole, and still,
however much the mass, can’t eat its fill.
Though it’s larger far than Jupiter or Mars,
we can barely see it, thank our lucky stars.

*****

 William Trowbridge writes in Rattle, where this poem was published: “I’ve spent most of my years as a poet writing free verse, though lately I find myself turning toward form. Unlike those who see formalist verse as dry and effete, I find it can generate power by means of barriers to play against—‘the net’ as Frost put it, by which he also meant boundary lines. If you pour gunpowder in a pile and light it, a mere flash occurs. But pack it tightly into a container, and you can get something more powerful. And, as opposed to the notion that form is restrictive, I agree with Richard Wilbur that it often liberates one from choosing the easy word in order to discover the better, surprising one. I haven’t moved into this part of town yet, but I stop there more and more.”

William Trowbridge’s tenth poetry collection, Father and Son, was published by Wayne
State College Press Press in April. His poems have appeared in more than 45
anthologies and textbooks, as well as on The Writer’s Almanac, AnAmerican Life in
Poetry, and in such periodicals as Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, The Georgia Review,
The Southern Review, Plume, Rattle, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Epoch, and
New Letters. He is a mentor in the University of Nebraska-Omaha Low-residency MFA
in Writing Program and was Poet Laureate of Missouri from 2012 to 2016. For more
information, see his website, williamtrowbridge.net.

YouTube: Data Sonification: Black Hole at the Center of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster (X-ray), NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center