b&w sonnet no. 1

sonnet¹⁴ 

Copyright © 2022 by giovanni singleton. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 29, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“If one definition or translation of ‘sonnet’ is ‘little song or sound,’ I wonder what song could be smaller than that of its own name? ‘b&w sonnet no. 1’ explores the tones and textures of this popular form for about fourteen seconds. Sounding its name, its essential nature emerges. Refract the rhyme scheme into repetition. The exponent of fourteen ‘lines’ sits slightly above, as if a volta, a hat, or an antenna, attending to whatever it encounters from the airwaves. A song requires an ear, after all, even if it’s an eye. See, sound, and sing for yourself. Petrarchan, Shakespearean, Spenserian, Miltonic, holy, half, skinny, curtal, double, American, puffy, deconstructed, crown of. . . And, at the end of the day, who among us doesn’t just love a good sonnet?”
—giovanni singleton