PowerSonnets
juliana spahr

The poet who understands the sonnet form is the one who has developed an instinct for exploiting the principle of imbalance. And to emphasize the distinction between octave and sestet, the poet tries to make the rhyme-words of the final six lines as different as possible from those of the preceding eight. Hopkins expresses the principle pleasantly: “When one goes so far as to run the rhymes of the octave into the sestet, a downright prolapsus or hernia takes place and the sonnet is crippled for life.”

—Paul Fussell, Poetic Meter and Poetic Form

 

Once. We to be. We to be. Once. To be we to be. One. To be. Once. To be we to be. Once. We to be. To be. We to be. Once. Once. To be. Once. To be. Once. We to be. Once. We to be. We to be. Once. To be. Once. We to be. We to be. We to be. To be. Once. To be. We to be.

Their origin and their history patriarchal poetry their origin and their history patriarchal poetry their origin and their history.

Patriarchal Poetry.

Patriarchal Poetry their origin and their history their history patriarchal poetry their origin patriarchal poetry their history their origin patriarchal poetry their history patriarchal poetry their origin patriarchal poetry their history their origin.

That is one case.

Able sweet and in a seat.

Patriarchal poetry their origin their history their origin. Patriarchal poetry their history their origin.

Two make it do three make it five four make it more five make it arrive and sundries.

Letters and leaves tables and plainly restive and recover and bide away, away to say regularly.

Never to mention patriarchal poetry altogether.

—Gertrude Stein, “Patriarchal Poetry”

 

after Richard Plum in Elizabeth Kolbert, “The Last Floor Show,” New Yorker, March 20, 2000

after Jonathan Davis of Korn in Neil Strauss, “Please Love them: They’re Korn,” Spin, November 1988

after Harmony Korine, in an interview that was quoted in Harper’s sometime in 1999

after Mark Hoppins, in Riann Smith, “Princes of Punk,” YM: Young Miss, May 2000

after Roger D. Hodge, “Onan the Magnificent: The Triumph of the Testicle in Contemporary Art,” Harper’s, March 2000

after Frances Richard in a review of Tim Gardner’s show at 303 Gallery, Art Forum, March 2000

after Kendra Mayfield, “Why Girls Don’t Compute,” Wired Website, 3:00 a.m. Apr. 20, 2000 PDT

after President Clinton, Press Briefing and Press Release, White House Website, April 2000