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Sonnet 83

A thankless task. You churn them singly out.
They’re ordered chronologic’ly. And when
someone asks idly what they’re all about,
you can’t avow a single theme. But then
you add as afterthought, “I like being arch”—
you’d think wit travels on iambic wheels.
Alas, the modern earnestness has parched
the taste: writing’s now therapy, and feels
like masquerade; the pose as basket case.
They’ve cast down Ariel, and Caliban
shat out some chopped up prose with wit effaced,
devoid of rhyme, and no attempt to scan.
He means it, though. You mustn’t rush to judge
his putrid poetasting playschool fudge.

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Richard Craven is a British/Canadian former academic philosopher. He has spent 90% of his life in southern England, latterly in Bristol which is the subject of exoriating satire in his recently published novels Amoeba Dick and Pretty Poli, respectively parodies of Moby Dick and the Mayor of Casterbridge. His verse has been widely published, including in the Hypertexts, the Nonbinary Review, Bristol 24/7, the Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Clementine Unbound, and the French Literary Review.

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4 Responses

  1. Joseph S. Salemi

    Wow — what a devastating slap in the face to a great deal of the garbage poetry being churned out these days. I’m glad you mentioned “modern earnestness” — that certainly is a widespread and largely unrecognized problem in the way people think about composition. Everything has to be so stupidly “sincere” and “honest” and “authentic,” like one’s talks with a therapist, or one’s tax return.

    Finally, someone has used the proper past tense (“shat”) for the verb “to shit”! And the line “his putrid poetasting playschool fudge” is hard-hitting and delightful.

    Reply
  3. Paul A. Freeman

    A timely reminder not to ‘be’ the poem.

    Your piece also reminds us that poetry should be hard work to be rewarding.

    Thanks for the read, Richard.

    Reply
  4. Richard Craven

    Thanks very much for your kind comments, Joseph, Bob and Paul. Paul, I couldn’t agree more. Joseph, I think you’ve excellently grasped the point of my offering.

    On a more general note, while this is in most ways a conventional Shakespearean sonnet, with its strict iambic pentameter and ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme, it’s worth pointing out where it sonnet diverges from the conventional model:-
    (i) Frequent, not to say pervasive enjambment, between 2/3, 4/5, 7/8,8/9, 10/11.
    (ii) Non-adherence to the classic quartet-based problem-development-volta@9-resolution trajectory. Instead, the problem terminates with 4’s enjambment, and the initial development with 6. There then follows further development signalled by 7’s “alas”, with the volta eventually occurring in 10.
    (iii) Splenetic rather than wistful or romantic tone.

    Reply

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