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Daily Sonnets
Poetry. In DAILY SONNETS Laynie Browne charts new territory as she subtly investigates the daily influxes of the poetic moment. From longing for the family in the very midst of the family, to the play of the mind which mimics and shepherds the visible games of children, Browne offers here the mimesis of the possible, a moving reflection of action and intimacy, a letting go and a grasping of the poetic and the political, all in the firm hold of song.
- GenresPoetry
176 pages, Paperback
First published February 15, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 30, 2007
Browne's sonnets make the ordinary extraordinary. She incorporates language that surrounds her in her everyday life: the dictionary ("F Dictionary Sonnet"), fairy tales ("Horses sleep in the castle…The dragon has fallen"), children’s TV shows ("Say sorry before you run over Elmo"), and the evening news ("Post 9/11 Sonnet").
These sonnets are offically sonnets only in that they are 14 lines long (or 7 lines, for the many half-sonnets). They have no regular iambic pentameter or rhyme scheme, and often no discernible volta. However, the title of the collection sets the reader’s expectations and the idea of the sonnet permeates the entire book.
And Browne does, indeed, do anything and everything in these little rectangular frames. Her sonnets often don't make sense, exactly, because the lines are loose, unmoored from one another. They can read like overlapping phrases or fragments. They’re disassociated from each other, but hang together companionably.
I particularly love the title's take on the entire collection--daily sonnets--as if writing or reading sonnets is a habit or practice. The title directs us to incorporate sonnets--or possibly poetry in general--into our lives as a regular part of our daily routine, like taking showers or our allergy medication. The concept of dailiness makes these sonnets comfortable and ordinary, but at the same time elevates them to an extraordinary level. Because, after all, are these 14-line poems sonnets in the strict sense of the word? Admittedly, I'm a little bit of a curmudgeon about the formalist aspects of the form, but certainly Laynie Browne's insistence on the fact of their sonnet-ness lends the entire collection a seriousness and a place in poetic tradition that otherwise might not be there. The sum of all of these sonnets placed next to each other is a little something more than you’d expect.
These sonnets are offically sonnets only in that they are 14 lines long (or 7 lines, for the many half-sonnets). They have no regular iambic pentameter or rhyme scheme, and often no discernible volta. However, the title of the collection sets the reader’s expectations and the idea of the sonnet permeates the entire book.
And Browne does, indeed, do anything and everything in these little rectangular frames. Her sonnets often don't make sense, exactly, because the lines are loose, unmoored from one another. They can read like overlapping phrases or fragments. They’re disassociated from each other, but hang together companionably.
I particularly love the title's take on the entire collection--daily sonnets--as if writing or reading sonnets is a habit or practice. The title directs us to incorporate sonnets--or possibly poetry in general--into our lives as a regular part of our daily routine, like taking showers or our allergy medication. The concept of dailiness makes these sonnets comfortable and ordinary, but at the same time elevates them to an extraordinary level. Because, after all, are these 14-line poems sonnets in the strict sense of the word? Admittedly, I'm a little bit of a curmudgeon about the formalist aspects of the form, but certainly Laynie Browne's insistence on the fact of their sonnet-ness lends the entire collection a seriousness and a place in poetic tradition that otherwise might not be there. The sum of all of these sonnets placed next to each other is a little something more than you’d expect.
July 30, 2014
The only "sonnet" constraint on these poems is the 14 line format. The rest is pure Laynie Browne--experimenting with the best of them, and finding magic and playfulness in language as a result.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews