[Newspoetry] Why the Blank Verse Sonnet?

[Paul Kotheimer]

	Why the Blank Verse Sonnet?


For spite.  To prove the sonnet isn't dead.
Because Italian rhymes too easily,
and those sing-song Petrarchans never said
too much besides "I wanna hold your hand";
and then, the 'Lizabethans had the perk
of word-inversion.  Rhymes, I say, are dumb
(_Onegin_'s the exception to the rule)
but meter speaks the heartbeat of the verse.

--And heroes, queens, and fops spoke English thus;
and so did poets, every now and then;
and "flowers fresh for vases old" and such;
plus, Herbert says a composition should,
first off, constrain itself in terms of length,
and six and eight works well enough for me.


--pjk

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