Thread by @PBW_Poet

Craft part 1: Deciding to move in gratitude and radical generosity when it comes to talking about poems, which I love and have not loved anything else like this since I've found my way to poetry. I am hoping some of you will join me however you can in appreciating this artform.

The first thing I want to share is that I do not invest in public humiliation of work that I do not like. It is venom for my spirit, is a magnet for smallness known and unknown in others, and misunderstands the opportunity of the critic: to elucidate.

So what follows are poems that interest me not because I like or dislike them (a useless distinction imo), but because they are attempting to do something in conversation with other poems and larger traditions. I want to open the path of the poems to inspire grander thinking.

Second, I believe in a criticality that moves in possibility, not cynicism; celebration, not jealousy; widening, not diminishing; and plenitude, not scarcity. This means that whatever "little" a poem seems to have, it deserves all *I* have by nature of my choosing it.

My attention to a work of art automatically creates a contract whereby I agree that the art *deserves* my attention by having attracted it. It is my responsibility then to honor my time expansively, humbling myself to the pulling of my heart, mind, spirit, always in wonder.

Third, I have zero interest in arguing quality and deservedness. It's often a dishonest mask sourced from unresolved issues having nothing to do with the work at hand. All I want to do is explore, a kindness that I believe we would like offered to our creations.

This is all going toward a larger essay on form, lineage, and repetition. So, stay tuned!

Now that my intentions are clear, what I am working through are the three sonnets that as far as I know don't have a named style. 3 Black poets come to mind re: this sonnet style (I am sure many others have written in this form): Terrance Hayes, Eve Ewing, and Nate Marshall.

There is also the poet and photographer, Golden, who has a similar poem but that I may save for another investigation. That poem, "Quadrennial," is linked here: poetryproject.org/publications/h…

And, see Douglas Kearney's "Sonnet Done Red" from PATTER.

The sonnet form, that I'll for now call a sonar sonnet (sonar for short), is one line repeated 14 times to create a sonnet composed solely

I'll work chronologically, starting with Hayes's "Sonnet," which is a sonnet that repeats the line "We sliced the watermelon into smiles" fourteen times.

On the surface, the poem appears simple to me, almost making me question what, exactly, am I supposed to do with this poem that has no obvious modulation, poetic turn, or sonic variance. It startles with its audacious redundancy, it potential to bore.

What I found myself experience right away is the jocularity of it, the near-absurd scene itself of a watermelon being cut into smiles 14 times. But by the 4th or 5th line, another emotion surfaced, shifting me from humor to a historical discomfort.

The sonar requires a pairing of its craft with a social understanding of political possibilities that echo within the reader. The more the reader knows, the more the poem releases, the reader's knowledge bouncing back and forth between the poem, accumulating into complex emotion.

Incredibly risky, "Sonnet" affects me on several levels: the repetition becomes creepy by means of simply repeating, the word "slice" and "smiles" begin to echo in eerie ways ways, and the racist implications of the watermelon sadden and anger me.

For info on the watermelon's racial history in the US, see: theatlantic.com/national/archi…

So self sustainability becomes racist propaganda, and the poem seems to begin with a simple seen of joy that becomes ominous, as though the speaker wants to convince through repetition that the smiles, sliced into reality, are sourced from pleasure and not minstrelsy.

There is also potentially a way to read it in reverse, the racist implications opening the emotional landscape of the poem that dissipates as the poem weaponizes the scene into one of agency. "We" slice the watermelons into smile: a promise, a threat to persevere.

On a similar note, Eve Ewing's "sonnet" repeats the line "I saved some cornbread for you in the skillet on the stove." A love poem, truly, maybe even flirtatious, a reminder that another's life is important to this speaker such that they want to feed them into continuing on.

What I find brilliant about this poem is that it can move in several directions with each stanza, a formal decision not present in Hayes's poem. Stanzas are the rooms of a poem, and with each stanza, a new breath is taken as the door to the next room opens.

What does it mean to save some cornbread for "you"? Who is the you? I mentioned flirtation above, but this can also be a parent, a sibling, an ex who is generous in spite, but generous nonetheless. It was kept in the skillet, which means it was kept warm for a while longer.

In the first room, I read someone coming home and hearing this from a loved one. Maybe they didn't hear the speaker, so the line is repeated gently while the person changes clothes, showers, takes a breather in the hall, pets the dog, kisses a child, decompresses.

By the second stanza, though, that same creeping feeling of discomfort comes. Why hasn't the recipient of the cornbread, this symbol for love, not taken the slice? Or, when are we? Is this another day, week, and the speaker's gift has been ignored each time?

By stanza three, I consider how this ritual has been either betrayed (spite keeps the slice uneaten) or broken (the speaker saved the slice for someone who never *could* accept it). I think death, the speaker saving cornbread for someone who has disappeared, hoping they return

The last two lines, no longer four, feel like a giving up, the speaker finally defeated. It's incredibly sad to read it this way, which is satisfying, that I could be shown in myself such possibility of feeling. But there is also a brighter reading...part 2 otw