Fighting Kite (page 15)

This seventh poem in Fighting Kite is a Petrarchan sonnet. I'm not certain now when it was written but it might have been in MFA school, like some of the first poems in the book. I was certainly working at that time on achieving a good sonnet. (By the way, there's an earlier blog post on this poem.)         Papa said, "You know I would have to kill you," to Mama, who sat quietly, head bowed. I was just a kid — five or six — and cried deep gut-wrenching sobs. The moon, like a new coin in the window, sliced in half by blue knives of cloud. "You're too young to understand, Vin," he smiled. "It would be my duty as a man." A tear on her cheek, Mama whispered, "That's true." To this day, I don't know if there was another man or if they were only talking possibility, in case, for example, Mama felt her face begin to flush downstairs with a repairman. Her only safety net then — Papa's motto, A place for everything, everything in its place. Page 15 In the earlier blog post mentioned above, here's some of what I said about this poem: [T]he incident recounted in the first stanza did happen. I remember my parents talking in these words or something very like them. I was indeed five or six, and you can draw whatever inference you want from parents talking about such matters in the presence of a kid in kindergarten or first grade. The event certainly stuck with me. I think this was probably, from my father's point of view, part of my indoctrination into maleness, into machismo. Part and parcel, I think, of US Army training as he saw it, from the dual perspectives of trainer and trainee . . . father and son, in the way his father (my Lolo) taught him to be a man, through hard knocks and a thick belt. I mentioned above that this is a Petrarchan sonnet; in the previous blog post, I wrote, "I am using this form because of the tradition of sonnets as love poetry. In this case, though, the sonnet is being used as a vessel for 'anti-love,' for control and oppression in the name, allegedly, of 'love.'" I continued: To be more specific, this is a Petrarchan sonnet with an octave (or eight-line stanza) rhymed abba acca, a small departure from the norm, an octave made up of two envelope quatrains (abba abba). The second stanza is a more standard Petrarchan sestet (or six-line stanza) rhymed cde cde. There is also the usual turn (or volta) at line 9 . . . in this case, a change in time: the opening octave set in the speaker's childhood and the closing sestet set in the present. If the poem was in fact written while I was pursuing my MFA, this is pretty cool experimentation for a student. By that point, I had written quite a few sonnets before grad school, but usually Shakespearean ones, so this Petrarchan sonnet is nice journeyman work. Of course, this is all surmisal . . . I may have written it when I was more experienced as a poet. Sorry I can't be more precise here. In any case, do check out the earlier blog post about this poem. Lots of other interesting material there, such as the Salvador Dali allusion in the poem. Pretty heady stuff! As always, I'd love to get some feedback or discuss anything with all y'all. Comment, okay? Thanks. Ingat.  FIGHTING KITE   INTRO FRONT CONTENTS PREVIOUS NEXT LAST