Poetic Shop Talk Presents: Tom Daley's Class, Week One

Directly below is a sonnet that didn't really follow any rule except having the lines rhyme.

While Your Friend Prepares For War

Too much to symbolize in the sandbox
where the son plays his army for the day,
leaves plastic casualties under dirt and rock
only to switch remote-like to other play.
Even roses at convenience store registers
suggest life exchanged for colored vanity.
You buy some, plan them for your girl,
in hopes that they won’t die so stupidly.
It’s quiet now. The mob has learned new tricks,
spreading out in search of your dissent.
The ribbons stuck to tree and pole seem quick
to strangle you with hands otherwise bent
to clasp yours when you visit on weekends,
watch news silently between card games, remain American.

For the first assignment, we were to either bring in an example of our own original attempts at iambic pentameter or a poem that could have been transformed into one. Aside from time restraints, there were a lot of lines that seemed unintentionally iambic. What follows below is the results of an hour or so of the first rewrite, a workshop discussion, and the rewrite that followed.

While Your Friend Prepares For War

Last week, the sandbox turned into Iraq.
It’s there the son played army for the day,
left plastic casualties midst dirt and rock
before he left in search of other play.

Those roses from the quick-stop registers,
more lives exchanged for colored vanity.
You bought some, planned to give them to your girl,
and hope that they will die more purposefully.

It’s quiet now. The mob has learned new tricks,
is spreading out in search of your dissent.
The ribbons stuck to tree and pole seem quick
to strangle you with help from those who sent
you invites to come down and cheer your friend.
You sit in silence, stay American.

The workshop's overall opinion of the first version was that they found the ambiguity fascinating. Meaning they were impressed that they couldn't be certain whether the politics in the poem were pro or anti-war. I thought the politics was obvious but realized that my intentional ambiguity over the last few years around friends and family might naturally leak into much of my work (Sarcastic Haiku excluded, of course). I tried to increase the level of ambiguity in the first and second stanzas.

More surpising to me was how paying attention to the meter actually improved the work. Tremendously, I think. I'm looking forward to the new sonnet I have to do for the next workshop.

Lemme know how you compare them and whether or not you'd like to see other examples of poetic forms from someone who's avoided them like the plague in recent years.

The language poets can breathe now. I'm done.