Ordinarily I don’t publish so much poetry at Theoria-press, and instead try to provide mostly essays with an odd poem or sonnet occasionally interspersed among them.
Max, I'm learning from your discipline, showing up each day to create a sonnet no matter your mood or your other activities. I believe that when we make this kind of commitment to our art, the skills are available and ready-at-hand when inspiration strikes. Thus G F Handel honed his skills producing entertainment for kings, and then in 10 days of inspired mania, he channeled The Messiah as fast as his pen could shape the notes.
Today's sonnet is a moment of inspiration. We're all grateful.
Gratitude for soul nourishment
☺
Max, I'm learning from your discipline, showing up each day to create a sonnet no matter your mood or your other activities. I believe that when we make this kind of commitment to our art, the skills are available and ready-at-hand when inspiration strikes. Thus G F Handel honed his skills producing entertainment for kings, and then in 10 days of inspired mania, he channeled The Messiah as fast as his pen could shape the notes.
Today's sonnet is a moment of inspiration. We're all grateful.
The poet who commits to fourteen lines
Finds focus and a certain inspiration
While words that don’t conduce his destination
Can have no place in sonnet’s strict confines.
A marriage, or a pledge made to a child
Can focus life, as poems focus art
A parent pares all that cannot be part
Of life that son and daughter have beguiled
He feels he’s both the finder and the found
His yoke is tight, but surely it is his
He bucks and starts, acknowledging what is
His lot and manifest, to which he’s bound.
The sum of his creation stands or falls
On what transpires within these prison walls.
Thank you, Josh. I appreciate your comment and sonnet, as well as the work you publish on your own Substack.