Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "safety" poam, and "write a poem in which you talk about disliking something – particularly something utterly innocuous [...] Be over the top! Be a bit silly and overdramatic."
Today I thought I'd try a curtal sonnet, a favorite form of my poet buddy (and Iowa Poet Laureate) Vince Gotera. He is also doing the same prompts as me this month, but moreover, he has been doing the "Stafford Challenge" - a poem a day for a year - for well over a year now. (Check out his blog here.) A curtal sonnet is a shortened (11-line) version of a sonnet created by Gerard Manley Hopkins, with a rhyme scheme of ABCABCDBCDC (although there are variations), with the last line being much shorter than the others, only a metric foot or two. I played a little more loosely with meter and feet in this one than I usually do, but I think it came out okay. It's a persona poem from the point of view of a driver type I see more and more frequently these days - the type who weaves in and out of traffic at a high rate of speed, creating hazard conditions for everyone with their recklessness. When I see that, I secretly hope to see their vehicle wrapped around a tree or a light pole a few miles down the road. I tried to get into the head of a driver like that, imagining a combination of grumpiness, anarchism and arrogance. For what it's worth:
Look at these speed limit signs. I hate speed limits.
They are meant to be broken. When there are no cops
or radar, I make my own rules. The Autobahn’s
unrestricted, why aren’t we? When I’m in it,
(the “zone,”) I dart like a wasp. This car hops!
Hey you, in the left lane, creeping like a toad—
I flash my lights, blare my horn—move over, dammit!
Why should you yield? Well, listen closely, Pops:
I am the GOAT! I am KING OF THE ROAD!
NOTHING STOPS—
5 comments:
Nicely done 👏
Fun poem, but also chilling, since there are drivers out there who are just like this!
Thanks for the shout out. Your curtal sonnet rhyme scheme is not quite right, though. The closing 4 1/2 lines should be DBCDC or DCBDC. No E, in other words.
Hmm, I can't remember my source for that
Hmm, I can't recall my source for that rhyme scheme, but apparently they steered me wrong. I'll have to see what I can do to tweak it.
I just reviewed my notes, and AI is the culprit. It said the rhyme scheme with the "E" rhyme is a common one in the curtal, and gave "Pied Beauty" as an example. Scanning that poem again, I realized it's actually the scheme you cited.
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