Sunday, November 15, 2015

Sonnets n' Such


Greetings, Faithful Friends!

Today's contribution is more whimsy than wit, but I hope it will meet with your approval nonetheless.   It is a lighthearted and, frankly, somewhat absurd example of that noble form known as the sonnet.  For those of you who don't know, may I direct you to: Sonnets! That webpage, though by no means a perfect textbook, ought to give you the basics.  I have also included, after some hesitation, an analysis of this poem that was (graciously?) penned for the purpose of accompanying it; I leave you to guess at the identity of the writer, who wishes to be nameless.  All I can say is that the author of that assessment is someone whom I sometimes fall into the vile delusion of admiring, but toward whom, in my soberer and saner moments, I like to think I bear a healthily critical attitude.   They smile as I write this.

Without further ado...

+JMJ
Tempus Fugit
By Caitlin LoTruglio
Copyright 2015

If time were worthier, did not decay,
If hours, earthen vessels, stood empty men
This verse were labor of a summer’s day
That might be fuller filled and filled again
So like unto the red-capped drinking bird
Sipping till ambriosious liquors’ spent
It bobs and nods as though it would be heard
And, nodding lastly, then would be content
But, prodigal, these hours are not to be
They, wispy, steal as smoke-foam from my tent
Gone off to tempt with yet more transient glee
And in some other soul provoke desire –
Wherefore this burdened writer pens in ire!



Analysis: 

The speaker appears to be the “author” of the poem who, it seems, has run short on time.  This person desires that time might be, as it were, recyclable -  they wish to get more out of each hour (they want each to be able to be “fuller filled and filled again”).  The writer/speaker, perhaps because they are so short on time when they are writing this poem, then makes a hilarious comparison to an ordinary object, dressing it in language that suggests something much grander.  Namely, they liken the hours to a drinking bird toy (probably very like this one, which you might find in a dollar store or similar establishment) dunking its head in a cup of tapwater until the water evaporates so much that the bird stops and stands finished; here, in the poem, the bird is treated like a noble animal sipping daintily at its godlike sustenance (some “ambrosious liquor”) and listening for a break in conversation (it bobs “as though it would be heard”) so that it may speak its piece and then stand “content.”  The sestet expresses clearly the writer’s frustration that the hours slip away from him/her like smoke from a camp fire – apparently deliberately, for they “steal” away and go to “tempt” another into desiring them to linger as this author has been tempted and, in consequence, the author writes about the situation angrily (hence also his/her characterization of time as unworthy, or at least less worthy than it could be, in the first line).  What seems unfathomable, though, (and perhaps also inexcusable) is the author's choice of the term "smoke-foam" which, while syllabically acceptable, nonetheless seems odd and very much a pathetic image.  I cannot say I commend her for it. 

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