Is the Sonnet Form Still Worth It?

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Three things inform this post about the sonnet as a form:

1. I once spoke with the Canadian poet Christian Bök (the only time we met), and if you don’t know Bök’s work, he is a proundly experimental, risk-taking writer. His book Eunoia, written in the Oulipo tradition of constraint, is as one-of-a-kind as it gets. One of Christian’s positions—well-played because it always riles people up—is poets shouldn’t write any more sonnets. Ever. His point: why should we? There are too many already (see Raymond Queneau’s “A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems”) and we should move on to newness. Why continue to do what has been done so much already? I found his question valuable and one that made me think deeply about the form(s) my writing took and why.

2. Unrelated to the above, yesterday I was thinking about my children. I’m sure many of you subscribers have children, but it’s certainly not necessary to latch on to what follows. We have two daughters who were born pretty close together (about 18 months). I remember feeling guilty when the birth or our second child approached: had we spent enough time with the one child we already had? She was (and is) a beautiful and adorable kid, and here we were, so quickly taking our full attention away from her before she was even getting started. Once our second child was born, things certainly became harder, and my guilt increased—my wife had to spend a lot of time with our new daughter (long story) while I managed the older child. So now I felt guilty about not spending time with the younger, while thoroughly enjoying myself with the older. You can’t win!

3. I had written a sonnet titled “Ultrasound” for the older and felt compelled to write another about these feelings for our newborn, who I was unable to spend as much time with. Why the sonnet? Because they’re compact boxes of thought that require expansiveness within constraint. So yes, I find sonnets useful and wonderful because, for me, they recall the primal impulses of poetry: This is like this or First there was this which then became this. Simple, ancient formulas that connect us across centuries of creation and thought. That second sonnet is below, titled “Second Born.”

You be the judge if sonnets are worth writing and whether or not I did the form any justice in terms of if they can still be fresh. It’s a tall order!

And remember, any sonnet worth reading is far bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Second Born
       by Chuck Rybak

We are out of step. Step, out of, we are.
The reports of your ultrasound arrived
like the diaries of famed explorers—
the bees are made of gold, as are their hives.
Now, I hold you briefly, then chase your sister
through the birch and willows that lead to sleep,
and you're bumped from my dreams, which I reserve
for building skyward toys, all missing one piece.

Soon, I will turn back the clocks and join you
where the surplus of sand, sunlight, and water
is plenty for the cupped hands of an hour.
Try this: hide in the sundial's shadow,
the cool fin of indication that covers
the moment where you were always to be found. 

Midjourney renderin of the text of “Second Born” used as a prompt

For me, this tiny box of a form completed something. While I had written a sonnet (small) for my first-born (also small), I had not for my second. I had created a little story box for my first born as a gift, a small snapshot of the heart’s moment. I felt compelled to do so again, and now I will always be able to look back on a similarity (form) to juxtapose and remember a great emotional difference (content).

In that way, the sonnet feels perfect for such a practice: make this talking object, keep it in your pocket for later.