Sonnet for Minimalists

(White Peony, 1950, woodblock print by
Kawarazaki Shodo, 1899-1973, Japanese
artist)

By the twentieth century, poets felt free to experiment with the rules governing the different kinds of sonnets in English.

This sonnet follows the Shakespearean form of three quatrains of abab, cdcd, and efef rhyme, with a concluding couplet of gg rhyme. But its meter goes its own way, completely avoiding the traditional iambic pentameter of five feet, or ten syllables, of short/long or stressed/unstressed meters per line.

SONNET FOR MINIMALISTS

From a new peony,
my last anthem,
a squirrel in glee
broke the budded stem.
I thought, Where is joy
without fresh bloom,
that old hearts’ ploy
to mask the tomb?

Then a volunteer
stalk sprung from sour
bird-drop this year
burst in frantic flower.

The world’s perverse,
but it could be worse.

~ Mona Van Duyn (1921-2004), American poet, appointed poet laureate 1992-1993

Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat in the Kitchen

(Mona Van Duyn, poet laureate, 1992-1993)

MR. AND MRS. JACK SPRAT IN THE KITCHEN

“About half a box,”
I say, and the male
weighs his pasta sticks
on our postal scale.

To support my sauce
of a guesswork rhymer
he boils by the laws
of electric timer.

Our joint creation,
my searchings, revisions,
tossed with his ration
of compulsive precisions,

so mimics life
we believe it mandated
that God had a wife
who collaborated.

And cracked, scraped, old,
still the bowl glows gold.

~ Mona Van Duyn (1921-2004), American poet