A Sonnet a Day for 14 Days: Patrick Kavanagh

In the flow of a conversation about poetry with a visual artist friend (the kind of conversation I don't have that often these days) she confessed that she didn't know what on earth I meant by a sonnet, or why they were so central to the pursuit of poetry in English. I foolishly promised to introduce her to the form over the next fortnight, sending her a sonnet a day by email.

We set no rules, so I'm going to play as fast and loose with the form as the poets themselves. Fourteen lines (not always, Hopkins' 'curtal sonnet' had fewer) usually rhymed (though Robert Lowell had something to say about that) and often romantic/erotic (though sometimes religious poets bent that erotic energy into theological shapes.)

If you want to pause and read up on the form in more detail, the Academy of American Poets has a neat introduction here.

I'd read a couple of classics of the form by Donne and Milton, and she found the archaic English off-putting. So rather than starting at the beginning and working forward, I changed my mind and thought I'd start the sonnet-a-day sequence with, something more recent, this gem from the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967).

Inniskeen Road: July Evening

The bicycles go by in twos and threes -
There's a dance in Billy Brennan's barn tonight,
And there's the half-talk code of mysteries
And the wink-and-elbow language of delight.
Half-past eight and there is not a spot
Upon a mile of road, no shadow thrown
That might turn out a man or woman, not
A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.

I have what every poet hates in spite
Of all the solemn talk of contemplation.
Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight
Of being king and government and nation.
A road, a mile of kingdom. I am king
Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.

All the basics are here: 14 lines, built around three quatrains and a final couplet (though not quite following very traditional rhyme arrangements (of which more later!), with the octave and sestet (first 8 and last 6 lines) separated by a stanza break here.

We talked about the volta. It's interesting that here this standard turning point isn't at the start of the sestet but a couple of lines in ('Oh, Alexander...') If you ask me, it's an effort of self-control being dramatised through the very form of the poem. I'm fine, I'm really fine, don't mind being alone, honestly, look, I can even manage to start my sestet without changing tone -- oh damn it! I really hate being alone!

And check out that 'blooming'!

I wrote a little more about this one, and Kavanagh more generally, here.

PS - any suggestions for the list?