Poetry Friday: The Poetry Seven

X-ray image of the sun's corona
(photo courtesy of Yohkoh Science Team)

Who writes sonnets anymore?

The Poetry Seven.

That would be Liz, Cloudscome, Kelly, Laura, Tricia, Tanita, and myself.

A Crown of Sonnets (or a Sonnet Corona) is a series of linked sonnets, each one connected to the ones before and after it. Many, many weeks ago, by the luck of the draw, I was tapped to write the first poem in such a crown.

Would The Poetry Seven have let me do it if they'd known that I'd never written a sonnet before? I think they did know, because I'm pretty sure I let that drop in our emailed conversations.

At least I had nothing to compare myself to, neither my own past efforts, or (at that moment) their intimidatingly luminous examples. I wrote my sonnet over the long Thanksgiving weekend in a pie-induced haze. I was stunned by the glamor and the challenge of it. In my blog post that day, I titled the experience Sonnet-and-Pie-looza.

And now, months later, completely pie-sober, I'm still wondering:

Who keeps the glory of sonnet-writing a secret? And why?

And why didn't anyone tell me much, much sooner how much joy there is in writing poetry with like-minded souls? There I was, slaving away in my lonely garret....

So here's to---

The Poetry Seven.
Poetry Peer Pressure.
Sonnets All Around.
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

The full crown is posted at Liz in Ink. (Liz deserves special mention for dazzling us all into attempting this in the first place.) Each sonnet is also posted, with notes, at each poet's blog.

Here is my entry point into the corona:

Cutting a Swath
(a seven-pointed crown of sonnets)

#1
As shoes untied, you drag frayed words in trail
Behind your name; unlooped, they flop up steps
And trip your stride, and blacken blue the depths
Of day; from light to dark, from deep to pale,
Undone, you fall; unknown, you pass or fail.
In halls, you thread the holes between your debts
Unpaid, and those who shove your name in reps
Against the rails of crowded stairs. Inhale
The stench! Keep true your shoes! The ups and downs
Will yield a path to out beyond, to where
The mirror turns, and those who hid their marks
And stumbled most will dress and march in gowns
On paths unfound, on tracks, unnamed, a pair
Of laces, ends unbound, leaps free as sparks.

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

Sonnet #2 takes off where mine ends, and you may view it at Laura Purdie Salas's LiveJournal. Read all the sonnets in order, or view the crown in its entirety at Liz's.

Poetry Friday is hosted by one of The Poetry Seven's own, Cloudscome, at a wrung sponge.