These them pieces of ephemera I mentioned you remind me

sonnet no. c

This is the 100th sonnet of this series, which feels like something to note. The poems that come before this are eclipsed by the number 101. This poem also manages to be published on or near the time I began this series, which has finished its third year. I am proud of the work that’s represented by this sonnet and the 99 sonnets previous, and thank all of you who have supported this project.

Below this sonnet I’m listing out a few links to the other 99, just as a kind of review, I hope you will peruse them, and enjoy, and maybe scratch your head, and hopefully share.

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Here are my favorite sonnets. The PSA for all dads. The one I imagine James Joyce liking best. Or this one about James Joyce. Then the question Jessica asked the kids once, which led to my favorite sonnet about cowboys. Then there were these two wannabe cowboys, who I still will spit on their graves. A love poem. And this other love poem, because it was Valentine’s day. But this was really the love poem I wanted to show you. Or was it this one?

I have political poems too, although the study was waned a bit. I wanted this series to be about why white heterosexual males have this complaint about marginalization. I read once that an extreme end to the progressive side of identity politics is a kind of new Puritanism, where whiteness, especially being male and white, is the new original sin. For women, original sin is the foundation for Western misogyny, so this social-political development seems like fair turn, for men at least. Being a member of that demographic, I can’t get around my discomfort, although I’ve been often surprised and humbled by how narrow my world is. I’ve been deeply interested in the push back and case studies of conservatives on this subject.

I try to address that in the mob mentality of 2020, here and here. And then there’s the case studies of recent white monsters, like Travis McMichael, who had nothing better to do on a Sunday but murder, or Derick Chauvin, whose phantom will appear again. Then the old man in Vernal who creeped my wife out, deliberately?

Then there’s the politics of gun control, of Roe v. Wade. and Florida’s dumb Don’t Say Gay But I haven’t lately been able to find the words to respond to the tragedy of Palestine and Israel. Having never been to the countries, or have a cultural stake in it, I can only see an unbalanced sorrow, although all sorrow is complete and therefore one.

These first one hundred sonnets are dedicated to my uncle Tony Mountain, who died between sonnet 39 and 40 so I haven’t had his wonderful input on this work for 61 poems, which is sad. He was my best reader, and made sure to email me a thoughtful response to every poem, even if the poem made no sense to him. I miss his feedback and his conversation. He really enjoyed my first draft of a sonnet for Brian Doyle and the two drafts of sonnet 10.

With Tony’s death the poetry went a little haywire. Half a year was taken up on a sonnet crown, and that was very strange. Since then it’s been less politics and more introspection. It feels time to take a break.

I’ll continue with this series, but at a two week run instead of one, so I can get some other pieces out. I have intentions to write more prose work on craft. More of that later.

Thank you for reading this far, you who got here. My deep appreciation to you, and all this best.

James

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Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash