Sonnet (1979)

(American Treasures: Gee's Bend, Alabama, Quilts, U. S.
postage stamps, 2006)

In her review of The Complete Poems (1927-1979) of Elizabeth Bishop, the poet Adrienne Rich wrote that “Bishop left behind, in the last unpublished poem of the last year of her life, her own last word on division, decision, and questions of travel.”

Bishop’s own title for this poem (below) insists it is a sonnet.

It may not look like a sonnet. It is much too narrow. The lines are short, without the traditional iambic pentameter of five pairs of short/long, unstressed/stressed meters, of ten syllables per line.

It may not sound like a sonnet, either. The rhyme is eccentric, with only three pairs of rhymes, each irregularly spaced between the rhyme of one line and its mate. For example, the word “level” of line 2 rhymes with “bevel” of line 11.

And its two stanzas are reversed, with the sestet preceding rather than following the octave.

But its length is the required fourteen lines. Most important, it does follow the structure and intention of a sonnet in establishing its theme, in this case first posing the problem, “Caught,” then proposing an answer, “Freed.”

SONNET (1979)

Caught — the bubble
in the spirit level,
a creature divided;
and the compass needle
wobbling and wavering,
undecided.
Freed — the broken
thermometer’s mercury
running away;
and the rainbow-bird
from the narrow bevel
of the empty mirror,
flying wherever
it feels like, gay!

~ Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), American poet

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As promised, here are the answers to yesterday’s sonnet-riddle.

SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET

by R. S. Gwynne

A man is haunted by his father's ghost.
Hamlet

Boy meets girl while feuding families fight.
Romeo and Juliet

A Scottish king is murdered by his host.
Macbeth

Two couples get lost on a summer night.
A Midsummer Night’s Eve

A hunchback murders all who block his way.
Richard III

A ruler's rivals plot against his life.
Richard II

A fat man and a prince make rebels pay.
Henry IV

A noble Moor has doubts about his wife.
Othello

An English king decides to conquer France.
Henry V

A duke learns that his best friend is a she.
Twelfth Night

A forest sets the scene for this romance.
As You Like It

An old man and his daughters disagree.
King Lear

A Roman leader makes a big mistake.
Julius Caesar

A sexy queen is bitten by a snake.
Antony and Cleopatra

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Your Catfish Friend

(Quilt by Lorena Pettway, Gee’s Bend, Alabama)

“When we think of friends,” wrote Mark Twain in a letter, “and call their faces out of the shadows, and their voices out of the echoes that faint along the corridors of memory, and do it without knowing why, save that we love to do it, we content ourselves that that friendship is a Reality, and not a Fancy — that it is builded upon a rock, and not upon the sands that dissolve away with the ebbing tides and carry their monuments with them.”

YOUR CATFISH FRIEND

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, “It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,”
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, “I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them.”

~ Richard Brautigan (1935-1984), American poet and writer

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Quarrelling

(A quilt by Minnie Sue Coleman, of Gee’s Bend,
Alabama)

“Now we can begin to see the profundity of Aristotle’s notion of full friendship . . . [as a] relationship of mutual good will that is based upon the virtue, or true goodness, of two persons. It is based upon virtue because this kind of relationship can only begin when virtue or goodness is already present. It is also based on virtue inasmuch as virtue or goodness is the main thing that is willed, desired, and sought in the relationship. What does a true friend want most of all — the virtue of the friend: that it be, and increase! This fits with the insight above that a friend wants what is best for his or her friend. . . . [V]irtue is always what is best for a person, period.”

~ John Cuddeback, from True Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness

QUARRELLING

The ancients argued that friendship could never last.
A few old friends, we walk on the mountain’s milder slopes,
Discussing their reasons. The wind lifts our coats.
An hour passes, and we find we are shaking our staffs,
We are out of breath. We must have been quarrelling!
Some prophecies, if you listen to them, come true.
Quickly we drop the topic, open the picnic baskets,
And pour the wine. How sad it would be to drink alone!
Someone recites a poem on the sorrow of separation.
It seems the famous sages were not unfailingly right.

~ Tao Tschung Yu, eighteenth-century Chinese poet

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I Am Offering This Poem

(Quilt by women of Gee's Bend, Alabama)

Sometimes, you don't have anything to give except love.

I AM OFFERING THIS POEM

I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it like a warm coat
when winter comes to cover you,
or like pair of thick socks
the cold cannot bite through,

I love you,

I have nothing else to give you,
so it is a pot full of yellow corn
to warm your belly in winter,
it is a scarf for your head, to wear
over your hair, to tie up around your face,

I love you,

Keep it, treasure this as you would
if you were lost, needing direction,
in the wilderness life becomes when mature;
and in the corner of your drawer,
tucked away like a cabin or hogan
in dense trees, come knocking,
and I will answer, give you directions,
and let you warm yourself by this fire,
rest by this fire, and make you feel safe,

I love you,

It's all I have to give,
and all anyone needs to live,
and to go on living inside,
when the world outside
no longer cares if you live or die;
remember,

I love you.

~ Jimmy Santiago Baca, born 1952, American poet


HE WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with the golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and half-light
I would spread the cloths under your feet
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams beneath your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

~ William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet and dramatist

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