Ode to Cat

Introduction

If you are a cat person, you might be predisposed to like the following poem … unless, of course, you decide it fails to do cats justice, though judging me harshly might also be enjoyable. If you’re a dog person, perhaps this poem will help you to see the light and change your ways before it’s too late.

The Poem

Ode to Cat

“To be or not to be,” that’s just BS.

“To do or not to do?” is what I ask.                          2

Are weekends best for resting, to de-stress,

Or time to chase down countless little tasks?

I ponder this and then I see my cat.

As if to taunt me, all she does is nap.                       6

She looks so wise … could this be where it’s at?

I pick her up and put her on my lap.

The cruel, accursed beast—she never stays!

A rescue cat, she’s skittish as they come.               10

To run for cover’s just how she allays

Her fear (though nothing’s what she’s running from).

Some weekend mornings, I will rise at dawn

In quest of precious, peaceful writing time.           14

I creep downstairs and put the kettle on.

The stars line up: the moment feels sublime.

Warm mug in hand, I settle down and start

To gather up my thoughts—but what is this?        16

My kitty’s joined me … bless her little heart!

She kneads my lap … O what a treat this is!

But now I can’t get any writing done.

I can’t disrupt my cat, she needs this lap.              20

My little plan will have to be postponed.

I must hold still throughout this creature’s nap.

By chance I find a novel close at hand

And just like that, my morning plan’s recast.        24

Before I’d had such grand, ambitious plans

But now I want to make this moment last.

    To do or not to do: my cat knows best.

    With help from her, the matter’s put to rest.     28

Footnotes & commentary

Title: Cat

I could have written this for my cat in particular (i.e., Ode to Freya), but I want to give a shout-out to housecats in general. (Note to Berkeleyites: I know that by city resolution, the term “pet” is out in favor of “companion animal” and “owner” has been replaced by “human guardian,” so the phrase “my cat” may startle you. Yeah, yeah, I know you can’t “own” an animal. I’m tempted to apologize, but then Freya just feels like “my cat” and I refuse to be disingenuous about this. I also gather that in some quarters “Berkleyan” is strongly favored over “Berkeleyite” so I’m tempted to apologize for that, too—but haven’t you folks derailed this commentary long enough?)

Line 1: BS

Is it verging on blasphemy to call BS on Shakespeare? Hey—not so fast. I’m actually calling BS on Hamlet, not his creator. Why does Hamlet consider suicide, when he’s such a bright guy he can spew perfect iambic pentameter off the cuff? Okay, fine, his dad died and his mom is marrying an asshole … boo hoo hoo. Get a backbone, Hamlet, would you please? I can answer his hand-wringing “to be or not to be” quandary in one word: be. It’s too bad Ophelia couldn’t take a page from Paloma Faith’s playbook (well, songbook) and tell Hamlet, “Don’t say nothing/ Just sit next to me/ Don’t say nothing/ Sshhh/ Just be, just be, just be.”

Line 3: resting, to de-stress

The phrase “de-stress” irks me a bit, summoning as it does the cliché-ridden lingo of corporate America. But that’s exactly what I need to connote here, because working in this realm is what tires and stresses me out so much.

Line 4: countless little tasks

I feel like during the week, I can barely keep my head above water on the home front. This means anything extra—fixing my bike, organizing the garage, mailing a package—can feel like a really big deal. If I dig deep and take on this kind of crap, I head into the next work week more tired than ever and gradually start to augur in. On the other hand, if all I do all weekend is rest and recover, I feel like I don’t have a life outside of work. It’s an ongoing dilemma.

Line 6: as if to taunt

No, I don’t think cats are actually sophisticated enough to taunt anybody. Conversely, I’m sure they aren’t attuned to sarcasm, which is why I feel completely free to say to my stretched-out, luxuriating cat, “Freya, you really need to slow down—you can’t keep burning the candle at both ends like this.”

Line 7: looks so wise

Would we love our pets so much if we didn’t project positive traits onto them? Just like dogs appear to smile, or to have thoughtful, penetrating eyes, cats surely look wiser than they are. It’s an illusion I enjoy, so I let myself believe it most of the time.

Line 8: put her on my lap

In my experience, there are two kinds of cats: the kind that love to jump onto your lap and do so freely, and the kind who generally avoid your lap. I have yet to encounter a cat who is blasé or ambivalent about this, so it’s pretty pointless to put a cat on your lap and expect him or her to stay.

Line 9: cruel, accursed beast

Given what I just said, isn’t it totally unfair to deride my cat this way? Of course it is, but frankly, as foolish as my behavior is, everyone in my household feels affronted, every time, when Freya bounds away. I never said humans were wise either.

Line 10: rescue cat

What, you haven’t heard the term “rescue cat”? Well, I haven’t either. But we all hear the phrase “rescue dog,” usually spoken with just a whiff of self-congratulation. Not that I would take anything away from someone kind enough to rescue an unfortunate homeless dog. But I got this kitten from the pound … isn’t that a rescue, too? Not according to the Pet Adoption page on Wikipedia on which the phrase “rescue dog” appears six times  but “rescue cat” not once.

Here’s the Frey when she was very young:

Line 10: skittish as they come

As a tiny kitten, Freya was a stray, and this has left its mark. A car door slams a block away and she races across the room and hides. A shoe drops upstairs and she stiffens, eyes wide, threat level orange.

As a tiny kitten she liked to climb into this tiny basket. It’s amazing she even fit. I suppose she felt secure there, perhaps almost like being swaddled.

Line 12: nothing’s what she’s running from

Sometimes Freya is just bored and pretends there’s danger, just to have an excuse to race across the house. After five minutes of this she’s ready to sleep it off, of course.

Here she is in a playful moment.

Line 12 would be near the end of a standard sonnet (just before the rhyming couplet at the end). I’m not a good enough poet to condense all my content into so few lines, so I just kept going.

Line 17: bless her little heart

Though I’m not real clear on the details, I’m vaguely aware that “bless your heart,” at least in the South, isn’t exactly a compliment. That’s about right, because the first moments, when Freya has decided to try out my lap, mean nothing. This is her nervous period when I’m expecting her to suddenly change her mind and leap off my lap, so this seemingly loving expression could well be followed immediately by “you little shit.”

Line 18: kneads my lap

I have a little claw trimmer that I use to keep my cat’s claws from getting too sharp … thus, it is neither painful nor ruinous to my clothing when she does this classic pet trick.

Note how her tail is hooked around her front leg there.

Line 20: needs this lap

You might accuse me of using this phrase just for a nice poetic shimmer so soon after “kneads my lap.” After all, I’ve made the case that Freya is on the antisocial side, and it’s commonly theorized that cats only sit on us for the heat. But in this case, I had the heater going! Nine times out of ten she’ll take a heater vent over a lap, but that tenth time? Remember, this cat had a traumatic kittenhood. It just might be that some modicum of feline-human connection is actually important to her. Maybe she also treasures this particularly quiet time when she can finally relax enough to succumb to a  lap.

Line 21: have to be postponed

So often, postponing writing for even twenty minutes during this enchanted morning time means losing that twenty minutes forever. When the family is up and around, I kind of want to be distracted. When my daughter says, “Dad, let’s get a bagel!” I wouldn’t even consider saying, “I’m busy [needlessly] writing [endless prose that nobody will ever read], sorry [but not sorry enough to get over my self-importance].” Full disclosure: we’ve gone for bagels only like twice, but it’s a matter of principle. (It sure isn’t a matter of gastronomy; I’ve come to accept that you can’t actually get a proper bagel outside of NYC.)

Line 22: must hold still

Do I really have to hold so still that I can’t even type on my laptop? Most of the time, yes … especially when I’m juggling a coffee cup as well. Plus, early in the morning before the caffeine kicks in, I’m still pretty vulnerable to sloth and the cat plays a big role in that … she’s a terrible influence. If she were the kind of cat who always wanted to be on my lap, it wouldn’t be special and I’d probably make her leave so I could work.

Since I’m a sucker for “the exception that proves the rule,” here’s a photo of Freya sitting on me without preventing me from writing. In fact, here’s a bit of irony: if you zoom in, you’ll see she’s sitting on me even as I compose the very poem you just read.

That said, it’s a terrible photo, which attests to the rarity of this scenario. If this happened a lot, I’d have a lot better photo of it.

Line 23: by chance … a novel

Well, it’s not actually random chance that there was a novel within arm’s reach. My wife and I were both English majors and our house is filled with books. I read a lot—not nearly as much as I should, actually, and I could easily imagine spending whole weekend reading. The problem is, this would feel extravagant, almost profligate, since reading—for all its value and ability to improve my mind and soul—is still a form of consumption, and everything I consume dies with me. The impulse to write constantly competes: shouldn’t I be creating something, even if it’s only an amateur record of an ordinary life, that will probably be casually deleted shortly after my death when my kids neglect to pay the Internet server bill?

Line 25: grand, ambitious plans

You’re not allowed to laugh at me over my assertion that blogging represents a grand, ambitious plan. I was making fun of myself, so you’re required to laugh with me or not at all.

Line 25: make this moment last

I refuse to strike or modify this line because it happens to exactly capture what I’m doing here: I expect this time with the cat to last only a little while, and I do want to extend that as much as possible. That said, I concede that this phrase sounds pretty cheesy, like a Kodak ad. So now you can laugh at me.

Line 27: to do or not to do

This return to my opening salvo would be punchier if my poem didn’t drag out to twice the length of a regulation sonnet. What can I say? I’m no Shakespeare.

Line 28: to rest

This last word, rest, seems like the perfect way to end a poem about a cat, doesn’t it?

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From the Archives - Love Poem from a Coward

NOTE: This post is rated R for mild strong language.

Introduction

It’s a slow news day so here’s another old poem from my archives, with all-new footnotes and commentary. Enjoy please enjoy.

 Sonnet 17 - October 1, 1990

I see you in the classroom every day,

But hide my bashful face behind a book;                            2

At quite a cautious distance I must stay,

To satisfy myself with frequent looks.

I know it’s creepy, watching from afar

Instead of walking up and saying hi.                                   6

Alas, my social skills aren’t up to par;

I just can’t be that smooth and social guy.

A little voice says, “What is there to lose?

If you don’t try, you’re never gonna learn.”                       10

But I know better than to try to schmooze:

A louder voice says, “You will crash and burn.”

    Although approaching you makes perfect sense,

    I simply do not have the confidence.                              14

Footnotes & commentary

Title - 17

I named this “17” in a pompous attempt to seem Shakespearean. Giving a poem a number instead of a title was standard in Shakespeare’s oeuvre, just as using fancy words like “oeuvre” was standard among English majors in my day. This title was also intended as a pun because the speaker is 17 years old. (Did I reckon that would be obvious? I can’t remember.)

I originally wrote this for my high school creative writing class, and at that time it was indeed the 17th sonnet I’d written. But back then I named it “My Serious Love Sonnet,” to differentiate it from this one. Four years later, I extensively revised the poem for a college Shakespeare class. The professor had given us a choice: either take the midterm exam, or write a sonnet. That would have been a no-brainer even if I hadn’t already had a sonnet I could recycle. But I had to make tons of revisions because the original was embarrassingly bad.

Line 1 – in the classroom

The original high school version started, “I see you walking home ‘most every day/ And always want to help you with your books.” This was total garbage, of course. The idea of a teenage boy carrying a girl’s books for her was antiquated and schmaltzy even then. In retrospect, “classroom” doesn’t work that well either, because in a relatively small high school class no student should be forgiven for looking over at a girl 24x7 without ever talking to her. The notion would play better with a college-sized lecture hall … and yet that would make the speaker even more stunted, for surely a college kid should have put such abject shyness behind him. (I wasn’t exactly Big Man on Campus, but I was at least capable of striking up a conversation.)

Line 3 – quite

Using a word like “quite” here, just to pad out the line in service of the iambic pentameter, was a lame trick I leaned on excessively in my benighted youth. The original line was, “But always at a distance I will stay,” which avoids this pitfall but also sounds a bit off; in normal speech we usually put the verb first and then the prepositional phrase (i.e., “I will always stay at a distance”). So even the original line warped the language to force-fit the meter.

Line 4 – satisfy myself with frequent looks

The word “satisfy” here is totally wrong. The whole point is that the speaker isn’t satisfied by just looking. If he were, his anguish—which is the theme of the poem—wouldn’t exist and there would be no need for a poem at all (other than as a school assignment). Something like “stoke my appetite with frequent looks” would better capture the reality of a teenage boy who is all desire, and whose cravings are never gratified.

The professor circled “book” and “looks” in red and noted the imperfect rhyme. Sure, I could have put “books” instead, but that would suggest a stack of books that I’m peering out from behind, rather than a single open book that I’m peering over. I thought rhyming “book” with “looks” would be a totally permissible instance of poetic license so I was a bit annoyed at the red ink. That said, I got an A on the sonnet, so I couldn’t really complain.

Line 5 – creepy

I was, and am, just a bit uncomfortable with “creepy” here because it’s a pretty serious accusation, and the reader is naturally inclined to conflate the speaker with the poet. For that reason, I didn’t want to imply that these frequent looks were insufficiently discreet. For the speaker to be merely shy is kind of endearing; for him to be a stalker—not so much. And yet, “creepy” is also kind of perfect, because doesn’t every shy teenager with a crush feel like a bit of a creep? Needless to say this was years before Radiohead wrote “Creep,” but the sentiment is rather similar: “You’re so fucking special/ But I’m a creep/ I’m a weirdo/ What the hell am I doing here?”

Line 6 – walking up

Here, “walking up” seems like another throwaway phrase. I mean, what else is the guy gonna do? Yell “hi” from across the room? Obviously, “stepping up” would work better, but perhaps this expression wasn’t available to me. (Did people say “stepping up” in 1990?)

Line 7 – social skills

There’s something kind of clinical and dopey about the phrase “social skills” in the context of an angst-y poem in the voice of a tortured teen. (You think Radiohead would use the phrase “social skills,” other than ironically?)

To the extent that this poem is autobiographical, “social skills” doesn’t even cover it. My family culture growing up was socially … problematic. As a grade school kid I simultaneously believed that I was a) somehow intrinsically inferior to others and thus undeserving of their positive regard, and b) nevertheless above them, because they did stupid stuff like watching football on TV. So I was both terribly shy and slightly arrogant, which needless to say was the perfect recipe for social suicide and irrevocable pariah status.

By high school, though, I was more comfortable in my skin. I actually did have conversations with gorgeous girls, though I was far from smooth. For example, I was chatting with a total knockout named Audrey and she asked if I was going to register for the draft. I was too insecure to answer the question honestly—was I supposed to say no, so I’d seem like a rebel?—so I replied, “Yeah, I dunno … I haven’t really decided yet. How about you?” She laughed, “I don’t have to … I’m a girl!” I felt my face burning with embarrassment and that conversation was over.

Line 9 – little voice

Is it clear that the little voice is in the speaker’s head? I hope so, as that was my intent. This isn’t to say there weren’t actual voices weighing in on the matter when I grappled with my own real-life social foibles. There was this one girl in high school I was kind of into, who I was pretty confident would go out with me, but I just wasn’t sure that I wanted her to. For one thing, we were friends, and if I’d guessed wrong about there being a romantic opportunity, that friendship was sure to end or at least become awkward. Plus, dating in general seemed like a lot of hassle. So I did nothing, and after a while she must have told a friend to tell a friend, etc. and my pal David started hinting around that I should ask her out. I played dumb, until he grew impatient and said, “Look, here’s the thing. I have it on good authority if you ask her out, she’ll say yes. It’s like a slam-dunk.” I stared at him for a few seconds before finally replying, “So?” Exasperated, he fired back, “Let us not forget that our main objective here is to get laid!” He was half-serious, but also mocking me, and himself, and dating in general I suppose. His line became an instant classic.

Line 12: crash and burn

Look, it’s easy enough for you, the reader, to sit back and say, “What is this dude’s problem? He should just go talk to her! She’s probably perfectly nice.” Well, you didn’t go to my high school, and (maybe) you weren’t a nerd. Nowadays, nerds are kind of cool, but back then, in the Boulder Valley Public Schools, nerds and geeks and dorks were all basically the same thing and we were treated like vermin. Anybody who ran the risk of being cool to us was vulnerable to secondhand nerdiness. Moreover, any female who was cool to a nerd was in danger of being called “the geek-whore.” Not a geek-whore, but the geek-whore, like there was always one of them, though the process of selecting her was never clear.

How widespread was this geek-whore risk? I couldn’t really say. It’s true that a really gorgeous girl like Audrey was too far removed from nerdiness to ever run the risk of being called the geek-whore, but any girl that a nerd thought he might have a chance with was automatically in danger. A nerd hanging out with such a girl might hear about it from his nerdy friend later: “Dude, I saw you hanging out with the geek-whore at lunch!” If anybody overheard, and bothered to figure out whom the nerd was referring to, the poor girl was in great peril. These were dark times.

Line 13: you

There’s an obvious problem here with “you,” which originally meant the girl of his dreams, but then became a reference to the speaker himself, in the voice of his conscience. And now all of a sudden it’s back to the girl, whom the reader has probably all but forgotten about.

Interesting, isn’t it, how this poem has almost nothing to do with the girl being admired? That flaw came about through the revision. The original poem talked about the girl’s silky hair and pure skin, which was worse. It read a bit like a print ad for some fancy shampoo or skin cream. These details also increased the creepy factor somehow, even though love poems have traditionally fetishized the subject to some degree. My revised version, utterly bereft of information about the desired girl, has an air of “It’s not you … it’s me.” In that regard, it’s almost the opposite of an ode. At least I had the good sense never to show it to a girl, such as this one I was into at the time...

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From the Archives - A Valentine Poem

Introduction

I wrote a Valentine’s Day poem back in 1989, and built a little essay around it.  (The idea of footnotes didn’t occur to me at the time.)  My essay was titled “The Safety Valentine,” because the poem—which I encouraged my readers to pass off as their own—was so non-steamy and understated it couldn’t possibly incite the recipient to, say, slap the poet. 

That essay wasn’t very good so I’ll spare you.  The footnotes here, below the poem, are new.

The Safety Valentine – February 10, 1989

The Poem

   ODE TO A PRETTY MUCH OKAY GIRL                

         

Can I compare you to a slimy slug?

No way—compared to you, a slug is gross!               2

In fact, you put to shame ‘most any bug;       

The caterpillar isn’t even close.              

On you I think I’d rather fix my gaze          

Than on a snake that’s flattened on the road.          6

I’d rather hold your hand, it’s safe to say,   

Than stroke the skin of any horny toad.        

And lady, I would deign to dine with you,       

If going hungry were my other choice.                      10

I wouldn’t mind conversing with you, too,      

If forced to otherwise give up my voice.       

    So just relax and feel real glad,            

    That I don’t think you’re really all that bad.        14

Footnotes & Commentary

Line 1:  Can I compare

Needless to say, this sonnet is a takeoff on Shakespeare’s Sonnet #18, which begins, “Can I compare thee to a summer’s day?”  This copycat strategy is really for the reader’s benefit, to make the whole sonnet thing seem a bit more familiar and less daunting.  I hope you’re happy.

Line 6:  snake that’s flattened

Putting vivid imagery into poems is hard for me.  In that regard this is one of my better sonnets, I suppose.

Line 7:  hold your hand

It’s kind of silly how my speaker assumes his reader will be the more enthusiastic party.  Who is this guy?  Back when I wrote this, I was not very bold about busting a move.  I was far more concerned about being rejected than about leading somebody on.  (I’m a little better now, but that’s only because I’m happily married and thus fairly unlikely to be rejected, except by my cat.)

Line 8:  any horny toad

That “any” is slightly silly.  It’s not like one toad is grodier than another.  This is a simple case of subjugating content to the requirements of the meter.  “Horny,” on the other hand, is a fine word choice, with the innuendo obviously intentional.

Line 9:  lady

The word “lady” here would fit just fine within the milieu of an actual Elizabethan-era sonnet, but it clearly clashes with the modern, offhand expression “no way” in the second line.  Actually, “lady” is actually a very recent revision—i.e., just now.  The original line back in 1989 was “In fact, on you I’d rather spend my dough,” which was just so lame I revised it in February of 1991 when I actually gave this sonnet to a female friend, pasted into an actual safety Valentine.  My revised version was, “And ——, I’d choose to dine with you,” where obviously instead of the dashes I had the girl’s actual name.  I’ve withheld it here to respect her privacy.

Here’s the full story:  I found myself flying solo for yet another Valentine’s Day, which wasn’t like a big deal or anything to me, but for some reason I decided to do something about it.  So I called my aforementioned friend.  (Can a college-aged guy have a female friend whom he’s not trying to turn into a girlfriend?  Yes, in fact.  I’d started out friends with this girl, then randomly escalated things one night, and that didn’t work out so well—call it lack of chemistry, I guess—so we went back to being friends.)  I asked if she wanted to have a non-date and get some dinner.  She said, “Well, I already ate.”  I asked what.  “A cheese sandwich,” she said.  I argued that that wasn’t very much food, and anyway if she really wasn’t hungry, that was okay too—she could just watch me eat.  So then she admitted her actual misgiving, which was that she and her roommates were  having “girls’ night in,” which consisted of staying home and bagging on all men.  I said that was pretty ridiculous and that surely the first rule of Man-Hating Girls’ Valentine Night must be that if anybody gets a date, she’s automatically off the hook. 

At this my friend relented, and I quickly put together the Safety Valentine, with the poem and everything.  Her roommates shot daggers at me when I picked her up, and in fact I had the sense they always hated me after that.  (In fairness, they probably already hated me before that.)  She liked the poem pretty well, I think, being a fellow English major.

One final detail about this Valentine’s non-date:  after a nice dinner at the Rockridge Café my friend randomly decided to go into the convenience store across the street and buy a lottery ticket.  She had never done this before.  To our amazement, she won!  I don’t remember the amount—probably around $20—but every bit helps when you’re a starving student.  Besides, it set me up for the perfect punch line to the tale:  “Well, at least one of us got lucky that night!”

Line 12:  give up my voice

This was also a revision from 1991.  (I won’t even tell you the original line—that’s how bad it was.)  This bit about giving up my voice may have been a reference (conscious or not) to something that had happened the previous fall.  A girl I knew, for whom I really did have romantic intentions but who lived in Arizona, came to visit me.  It ended up being a terrible visit, primarily because I was hit with this terrible virus just before she arrived, and completely lost my voice!  That made things extremely awkward, to say the least.  Looking back, the whole thing was probably doomed anyway.  She was supposed to stay all week, through the Thanksgiving weekend, but by Tuesday we were pretty much done with each other.  I decided, on a lark, to drive to Boulder for Thanksgiving, theorizing that if I did this, the girl would be gone from my apartment by the time I returned on Sunday night.  In this I was not mistaken.

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Ode to South Park

Introduction

This post does not concern the TV cartoon “South Park.”  If you were looking for something about that show, you won’t find it here, but wait!  Don’t leave just yet.  I really like that show (though I’ve only seen one episode, the one with the babysitter and the cat and Cartman pretending he’s protecting Salma Hayek), so your sensibilities and mine might be compatible.

The following sonnet is an ode not to a TV show but to one of my favorite roads for bike riding, in Berkeley’s Tilden Park.  Obviously my ode will have special resonance for those who have ridden this road, but should also strike a chord with anybody who has a favorite climb, or anybody who seeks out a challenging course precisely because he knows it will kick his ass.

Poem

Ode to South Park

Of course I like this road—what’s not to like?

It’s quiet here and  green, and lush, and there’soooooooooo2

A grade of 10.5 percent:  to bike

Up here’s like running flights of stairs.

When young and strong, obsessed with going fast,

 I feared this road and thus avoided it. Ooooooooooooiooo6

Then age, though slowing, helped me to amass

The muster to be humble and submit.

Until last fall I liked this climb the best,

With pals or not, it was a battleground. Oooooooooooooo10

And then cruel fate decided to divest

Me of my strength.  Can I rebound?

This South Park climb will force the turning worm:

I slowly beat myself back into form. Oooooooooooooooo14

Footnotes & Commentary

Line 1:  like this road

The perspective here is of the poet in real-time as he pedals up the road.  I had the oxygen-starved inspiration for this sonnet while riding South Park the other day.

Line 2:  quiet

South Park Drive is particularly quiet from November through March when it’s closed to cars due to the mating season for newts, which has them crossing the road en masse.  One year, at the end of October, the newts got started a little early and I saw just how important the road closure is.  It was depressing:  I saw like two dozen of them, smashed completely flat.  As it happened, I had bad legs that day and the dead newts were such a blow to my morale, I almost turned around and went home.  South Park is that kind of climb:  the kind that has you searching for excuses not to go on.

Line 2:  green, and lush

I’m not botanist, but I can tell you the trees and plants along South Park Drive are the kind that are green and lush year-round.  It’s never dead and grey and brown like you get in places with real winters.  Sometimes fog gives the landscape a bleak, blasted look, but even that’s pleasurable; I always associate such conditions with the play “King Lear,” where the dethroned king is blind and groping and miserable on some vast wind-swept tundra.

Once, we had snow on South Park.  It’s close to 1,700 feet above sea level and very likely the only place in Berkeley that ever gets snow.

Line 3:  10.5 percent

A grade of 10.5 percent is pretty serious.  The steepest 0.9 miles of the road are particularly steep, climbing about 600 feet per mile for a grade of 11.4%:

Line 3:  to bike

You might think I used the word “bike” instead of “cycle” or “bicycle” simply to fit the meter of the poem.  No, I would never do that.  The word “bike” is a challenge to relative newcomers to the sport who, ever obsessed with image, insist on “cycling” over “biking.”  As I’ve documented elsewhere, crusty old veterans like me prefer “biking,” to show how little we care for semantic flourishes.

Line 5:  young and strong

As I have gloomily pondered before, I am no longer young and strong.  This is a bit different from saying I’m no longer young or strong.  Forty-somethings can still be strong, but it’s more of a battle.  When you’re young, the strength is something fresh and new and renewable.  Most importantly, you’re still growing it—your best fitness is still ahead of you.  As you age, strength becomes something you cling to:  the residue of your youth.  This strength is still a satisfaction, of course, but there’s also something slightly pathetic about it.  (Not, however, as pathetic as just letting it go.)

Line 5:  going fast

In cycling—er, biking—parlance, “fast” and “strong” aren’t quite the same thing.  Fast is more impressive.  First you get “in shape,” and then you get “fit,” and then you get “strong,” and then, if you train just right, you get “fast.”  The twenty-something racer takes little satisfaction in the century-ride goal of just finishing.  He must finish fast.  If he can’t do this—and only on a good day could a fit racer-type make it up a grade like South Park with anything that feels like speed—he can be surprisingly cowardly.  At least, I could, when I was young and strong.

Line 7:  amass

I believe it is possible to age without acquiring wisdom.  I don’t think you can chase wisdom.  I hope that my life experience, and all the great stuff I read, will gradually cause wisdom to accumulate.  So it is with muster in the next line of the poem.

Line 8:  the muster to be humble and submit

This is really what it takes to routinely attack a climb like South Park.  When I first started riding South Park with any regularity at all, I’d only do it when I was rested and fresh.  But as I got more disciplined about my training, those days grew scarce.  Something finally shifted in my attitude:  I realized it was okay for a climb to kick my ass.  I couldn’t keep pretending I could lick any road in my midst.  I learned to blow myself out completely without feeling a sense of loss.  I made South Park my go-to climb, that I would do almost every time I rode.  This didn’t make me any faster, but it made me tougher.  Gradually, this humility shaded into something more complex, involving the pride of hardened character.

Line 9:  until last fall

Both senses of “fall” are intended here:  autumn and crash.

Line 10:  with pals or not, a battleground

Riding with pals is a great way to stay motivated and ride jolly hard.  When I ride alone, which is most of the time, I’m often tempted to slack off.  The beauty of a steep climb is that you can’t choose to loaf:  like it or not, you’re trapped in the struggle of Man vs. Nature.  Often, the battle against nature turns into a battle against yourself:  naturally, “can I make it?” becomes “how fast can I make it?”

On a brutal climb, Man vs. Man becomes a fearsome endeavor.  At high speeds, savvy and tactical know-how can shelter you from your physical shortcomings.  On a climb, there’s nowhere to hide.  When I think back to the epic showdowns I’ve had with pals, the best ones always involve climbs.  So it was with South Park.  Here’s a excerpt from my training diary, dated March 27, 2008: 

We started off pretty mellow, but three minutes in Kromer unexpectedly threw down.  Suddenly he had a huge gap.  I started chasing him down.  Man, it was absurd how gradually I was gaining on him.  He’s a big, strong guy , a rolleur, a sprinter, and a fair bit older than I:  surely he couldn’t dispatch me this swiftly!  I finally caught on and, pretending I wasn’t redlined, nonchalantly asked him what his power was.  He said 460 watts.  I took his wheel.  On this steep pitch we were only going 8 mph so it’s not like I was getting a sweet draft or anything, but I stayed close so as not to give psychological comfort to the enemy.  Towards the top there’s a very short downhill section before the final wall.  I’ve found in the past that dudes instinctively let up a bit on that downhill.  This comes naturally, I think, when you’re suffering so badly.  Approaching this section, while still climbing, Kromer seemed to speed up even more, and the weak part of my brain took this as a sign that I was about to get dropped.  Meanwhile, the strong part of my brain, or at least the stubborn part, wondered if perhaps this meant he was cagily trying to finish me off before the really steep part at the very end.  I figured that no matter how bad I felt, I would attack on the little downhill and see what I could do.  Kind of like the dying general whose last words were a request to his men to turn him back around to face the enemy, so he wouldn’t die in shame.  I punched it over the top before the little downhill, and Kromer fell back:  no doubt to rest for a second or two on my wheel before slingshotting around and trouncing me.  Up until the moment I crested the climb, I was sure he had me, but amazingly my little ruse worked.  I crushed out the climb in 7:15, my best time of the year!  My agony, of course, was absolute.

Here’s a graph of that effort.  You can see here  the kind of elevated heart rate, and power output, involved.  (Why the disparity between Kromer’s 460-watt output and mine?  Two reasons.  One, he’s heavier.  Two, what you see below are “dog watts,” measured by a bike computer calculation involving barometric pressure, altitude gain, gravity, and my mass, and not factoring in wind resistance, rolling resistance, etc.)

You may wonder if my training diary also contains tales of battles lost.  Of course not:  why would it?  Being crushed by my pals isn’t news.  It isn’t salient.  The exceptions to the status quo, when all the planets align and I snatch a bit of glory, are what I bother to note.

Line 11:  cruel fate

Like line 9, this refers to a crash I had in November, sustaining a broken femur.  For months, the prospect of merely riding a bike again, much less climbing South Park, seemed sadly absurd.  In the poem I almost didn’t use “cruel fate,” because I’m not a particularly fatalistic person and am tormented by the idea that my crash could have been avoided.  But “cruel fate” is a nice Shakespearean reference, and in a vague, metaphorical sense I suppose we can acknowledge the role of fate in our lives.

Line 12:  can I rebound?

That is the question.  The doctors who treated me were wary about assuring me I’d be as good as new one day.  Over the last few weeks I’ve been able to ride my bike again, but with greatly reduced ambitions.  A tough ride for me now is Wildcat Canyon Road, a climb I’ve never thought difficult (and which in fact I used to call Pussycat).  Well, the other day I didn’t have time to ride all of Wildcat, but thought it would demoralize me to only ride part of it (I demoralize easily these days).  So I decided just to try South Park, which is closer to home.  I doubted I was quite ready, but remembered my long history with this road:  how I’d gone from only riding it when I was fresh to riding it no matter what.  This gave me the confidence, bordering I suppose on foolishness, for the attempt.  I barely made it to the end.  On the final steep pitch, I really wondered if my pedals would actually slow to a stop.  Would I clip out in time?  Would I fall over?  At the top I had to stop and rest (something I almost never do).  I didn’t have the energy to turn around and coast back down the hill.  Had there been a bench, I’d have sat down, or stretched out, on it.  My stopwatch time for the climb—more than a minute slower than my slowest trip up South Park of all last year—will give me something to improve on.

Line 13:  the turning worm

It is impossible to ride my bike and feel a pure gladness at my gradual progress, because I cannot help but compare my current self to my six-month-ago self.  These days I feel small and vulnerable and spineless.  The phrase “turning worm” is a reference to Shakespeare’s “Henry VI, Part 3”:

To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?

Not to the beast that would usurp their den.

The smallest worm will turn being trodden on

And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.

In my small, wormlike, dovelike way I’m turning against the injury encroaching on my body.  South Park Drive is a perfect surface against which to beat myself back into shape.  It is the opponent that may yet be my salvation.

How to Write a Sonnet

Introduction

I find myself unexpectedly caffeinated. I normally only use caffeine for bike rides or emergencies, but just now my wife, who drinks black tea throughout the day, had to suddenly run off somewhere and left behind a perfectly brewed and tuned cup of PG Tips. (Tuning has something to do with milk.) So I’ve wiped the trace of lipstick off the mug and made it mine. This caffeine injection, and some Metallica I’m listening to, have given me the courage to forge ahead on a difficult post about a surprisingly easy literary enterprise: writing a sonnet.

I realize there’s probably not much of a market for an essay on this topic. It’s bad enough trying to get people to read sonnets, much less write them, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from myself about writing, it’s this: screw the reader. Entertainment and the arts have bent over backwards trying to cater to their audience, and look where it’s gotten us: reality TV and “Us” magazine. Of course, where this blog is concerned, “screw the reader” may end up meaning “screw exactly one reader” (sorry Mom). That has not stopped me from adopting “screw the reader” as my mantra. (It is not, however, the mission statement of this blog, which is “albertnet — increasing shareholder value since 1969!”)

Why write a sonnet?

Before I get to the actual instruction, I’ll give you one good reason to learn how to write a sonnet: it’s the feeling you get when you’re done. What is that feeling? Well, have you ever been walking along the sidewalk, minding your own business, when suddenly you see somebody up ahead of you, running in your direction as fast as he can, trying to catch a bus or make some appointment, and you get this temptation, as he rushes past, to stick your foot out and trip him? Your only motive would be the pure spectacle of this person flying through the air, then crashing hard onto the ground, and picking himself up in a state of shock and bewilderment.

Think of it: one second the guy would be in a full run, his thoughts only on his bus or appointment, and then in a split second everything would change. He’d be as stunned by the sudden shift of circumstance as by your total lack of apparent motive. Then, of course, you’d have a serious problem on your hands, especially if he were a big guy with a hot temper, but never mind that—I’m talking about that brief period when you have arbitrarily seized control of the innocent fellow’s life. Exhilarating. Of course you would never act on this impulse, just as I wouldn’t; oddly enough, it turns out the best we can do in achieving that exhilaration is to write a sonnet.

You may be extremely skeptical of this assertion, and rightfully so. But how will you ever know if I’m right or not? After all, I’ve written sonnets (for example, this one), and you haven’t. (If you had, you wouldn’t be reading this post; you’d be doing something more fun.) The only way you’ll ever know if a sonnet can really give you this feeling is to try writing one yourself. Fear not: it’s really not that hard.

What is a sonnet?

You probably think of a sonnet as a dreary little poem such as what crusty old English poets used to write centuries ago. (As Lou Reed has sung, “The poets studied rules of verse/ And the ladies, they rolled their eyes.”) What you might not know is that the sonnet is a classic form that, though used heavily by Shakespeare, was developed centuries before his time by Italians. Yes, Italians—as in pasta, Armani, and Ferraris. Writing sonnets is not the exclusive activity of those trapped indoors by foul weather.

There was some minor tweaking of the sonnet form over time, particularly with the rhyme scheme. In this post I’m going to focus on the Shakespearean sonnet, which is a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter, where the first dozen lines follow an ABAB rhyme scheme and the last two lines comprise a rhyming couplet. I’ll define each of these terms, teach you how to master them, and whether you end up writing a sonnet or not you’ll be that much more impressive at cocktail parties.

What is iambic pentameter?

Iambic refers to the inflection of words in a sonnet, which creates the rhythm of the poem and makes it so much fun to read. Meter refers to the length of the lines, which in turn dictates how much rhyme there will be. (Thanks to people like e.e. cummings, modern verse is just a tossed salad of words, so we must turn to rap music, or write our own sonnets, if we want consistent rhythm and rhyme.)

Each line of a sonnet is written in iambic pentameter (as are most of the lines in a Shakespeare play, except those spoken by lesser characters like servants). I’ll get to “iambic” in a minute, but first let's look at meter. The meter of a poem is expressed as the number of “feet” in a line. “Pentameter” simply means each line has five feet. As with humans, the size of the feet will vary from style to style. The good news is, within a sonnet each foot is the same size: it’s always two syllables. Thus, a line of iambic pentameter verse always has exactly ten syllables.

With two-syllable words, there are just two kinds of foot: the iamb and the trochee.

An iamb is simply a pair of syllables with the emphasis on the second syllable. (If you don’t know what a syllable is, you’re in the wrong blog—click here.) The following words are iambs (that is, they’re iambic): alas, belong, create, delight, excite, festoon, galore, harangue, incite, jejune, Kinkade, liaise, mature. The word “iambic” is simply the adjective form of “iamb,” meaning “consisting of or characterized by iambs.”

The following words are not iambs, but their opposite, the trochee: nature, open, pious, quickly, rotgut, sicken, trickle, uncle, Vanya, whiskey, X-ray, yuppie, Zeitgeist. (Perhaps italics will help: consider “alas, belong, create” vs. “nature, open, and pious.”) The adjective form of “trochee” is “trochaic.”

So do we totally avoid trochees in a sonnet? No: you can achieve an iambic rhythm with non-iambic words, so long as you place them correctly within the line. A bit ago I gave a number of examples of trochaic words; in the lines below I’ve arranged these words so as to achieve an iambic rhythm:

ooooThe yuppie Zeitgeist sickens Uncle Ralph,

ooooSo quickly trickle rotgut whiskey, man!

Note that I had to start and end each line with a one-syllable word, so the rhythm wouldn’t be out of phase—that is, so the lines wouldn’t be trochaic. If you start a line of a sonnet with a trochee, the rhythm will be all messed up.

Conversely, iambic words work great in a sonnet, so long as you start and end the line with the iambic word instead of with a one-syllable word:

ooooAlas, Kinkade festoons jejune delights;

ooooMature beliefs incite harangues galore.

I didn’t bother italicizing anything in those last two lines, because you’re doubtless getting the hang of it by now and no longer need the italics. The natural inflection of the words—that is to say, the succession of iambs—naturally creates the desired rhythm. I think it’s almost impossible to read those lines without getting that duh-DA, duh-DA, duh-DA, duh-DA, duh-DA effect that is the hallmark of a sonnet and the most basic definition of iambic pentameter.

Watch out for sequences of one-syllable words. In high school I was given an assignment to write a poem in dactylic trimeter. I won’t bother you with what “dactylic trimeter” means other than to say I was daunted by the assignment and, thinking myself a sneaky little bastard, wrote the entire poem using one-syllable words. I thought this would make it impossible to screw up the meter, but I was wrong. As it turns out, the inflection of a pair or sequence of one-syllable words is not always arbitrary. To put it more simply, people put the emphasis on one word or another in many two-word phrases.

For some reason, I can’t think of a single pair of one-syllable words that is iambic, but I can easily come up with examples of two-word phrases that are trochaic. For example, consider “boy scout.” Most people will accentuate the first word: “boy scout.” (When I was a kid, my dad always said “boy scout,” which perplexed me. Maybe he was emphasizing the scout part, it being more impressive.) Other examples of trochaic phrases: “hot dog,” “pit bull,” “big time,” “trash can.” If you defy the natural inflection of such phrases your rhythm will be off. Here is an example of right vs. wrong:

Right:

ooooA hot dog makes a pit bull want to eat,

ooooSo put the trash can lid on good and tight.

Wrong:

ooooHot dogs are bad for foraging pit bulls;

ooooAnd so trash can lids should be put on tight.

In the “right” example, you naturally place the inflection on the syllables that I’ve italicized. But in the “wrong” example, if you try to read the lines according to my italics (i.e., to try to adhere to the iambic convention), you have to fight what comes naturally, and the end result just sounds wrong. (It’s worth pointing out, I think, that some words, like “foraging,” simply won't work in a sonnet. Any word that has a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables is incompatible with the iambic structure.)

A final note: in a real sonnet, you will invariably have a mixture of one-syllable words, two-syllable words that are iambs, two syllable words that are trochees, and words with more than two syllables. All are okay, as long as they’re arranged in such a way that the natural inflection supports the rhythm of the poem. For example:

ooooThe yuppie Zeitgeist sickens Auntie Grace,

ooooAnd yet she likes her creature comforts, too.

ooooExquisite and expensive are her tastes;

ooooVelveeta’s cheap, but not her precious bleu.

As shown by this example, iambs can span a pair of words. “Velveeta” is neither an iamb nor a trochee, being three syllables, but “Velveeta’s cheap” produces a pair of iambs. (In case you were wondering, I don’t actually have an Auntie Grace, and if I did, I wouldn’t call her “Auntie” unless I had to.)

What is pentameter?

The pentameter part is much simpler, of course. You just count the feet (i.e., the iambs) and make sure there are five per line. Count on your fingers if you have to; I often do. (Now you know what that weirdo was doing on Bart, scrawling in a notebook and periodically watching his fingers extend, one by one, lips silently mouthing “one, two, three…”)

As simple as this pentameter business is, I’ll give some examples anyway:

Right:

ooooCan I compare you to a slimy slug? (Ten syllables total; five feet)

Wrong:

ooooCan I compare you to a slug? (Eight syllables; four feet)

ooooCan I compare you to a pit bull? (Nine and a half syllables ; four and a half feet)

Oddly enough, one of the most famous lines of Shakespeare’s verse violates the relatively simple pentameter rule:

ooooTo be or not to be, that is the question.

Check it out: he’s got an extra half-foot on there! Sloppy work by the master? Of course not. This is, as they say, “the exception that proves the rule.” By screwing up the meter, Shakespeare causes the reader and/or theater audience to stumble. Normally you don’t want anybody to stumble, but in this case Shakespeare wants to give you pause, so you’ll consider the word “question,” which in the context of existence is the whole point of the soliloquy. (Not that you should feel free to deliberately screw up the meter in your sonnet, at least until you’ve achieved Shakespeare’s mastery of the form.)

What is an ABAB rhyme scheme?

ABAB is, of course, a misspelling of “ABBA,” the Swedish rock band that invented the rhyme scheme later adopted by Shakespeare. Okay, that’s false. What “ABAB” means is that the third line (that is, the last word in the third line) rhymes with the first line (that is, the last word in the first line), and the fourth line rhymes with the second line. In my four-line example above, “tastes” rhymes (more or less) with “Grace,” and “bleu” rhymes (more or less) with “too.” In other words, “tastes” and “Grace” are represented by the letter A, and “bleu” and “too” are represented by the letter B, in our “ABAB” classification.

Actually, ABAB is just shorthand: in a full-length sonnet, the first twelve lines rhyme in an ABABCDCDEFEF scheme. That is, after the first four lines, you start over, so the fifth line doesn’t rhyme with anything and neither does the sixth. The seventh line rhymes with the fifth, and the eighth line rhymes with the sixth. Then you start over again. Here’s an example, with a letter assigned to the final sound of each line:

ooooCan I compare you to a slimy slug? (A)

ooooNo way—compared to you, a slug is gross! (B)

ooooIn fact, you put to shame ‘most any bug; (A)

ooooThe caterpillar isn’t even close. (B)

ooooOn you I think I’d rather fix my gaze (C)

ooooThan on a snake that’s flattened on the road. (D)

ooooI'd rather hold your hand, it’s safe to say, (C)

ooooThan stroke the skin of any horny toad. (D)

ooooAnd anyway, I’d choose to dine with you, (E)

ooooIf going hungry were my other choice. (F)

ooooI wouldn’t mind conversing with you, too, (E)

ooooIf forced to otherwise give up my voice. (F)

The final two lines of the sonnet are called a “rhyming couplet,” which is a fancy way of saying “two lines in a row that rhyme.” This is represented as “GG,” and here’s an example:

ooooooooSo just relax and feel real glad (G)

ooooooooThat I don’t think you’re really all that bad. (G)

The rhyming couplet is often indented a bit (as above), and it is often used to summarize the rest of the sonnet, or deliver the conclusion that the other lines were suggesting. The overall rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet is ABABCDCDEFEFGG.

Exercises

I recognize that this is a lot to grasp, so to give you some practice, here are some multiple-choice quizzes. These should help train you on the concepts of iambic pentameter and the rhyme scheme of a sonnet. Answers to these exercise come at the end.

1.o Which if these is/are an iamb?

a. Dana

b. Lindsay

c. Both

d. Neither

2.o Which of these is/are an iamb?

a. Grotesque

b. Yucky

c. Both

d. Neither

3.o Which of these is/are an iamb?

a. Hors-d’oeuvre

b. Nibble

c. Both

d. Neither

4.o Which of these is/are proper iambic pentameter?

a. Whoever stole my poncho’s gonna pay.

b. I’m gonna find whoever stole my coat.

c. Both

d. Neither

5.o Which of these is/are proper iambic pentameter?

a. His blood pressure is getting higher now.

b. There’s nothing like a taqueria there.

c. Both

d. Neither

6.o Which of these is/are proper iambic pentameter?

a. I see you in the classroom every day

b. I satisfy myself with frequent looks

c. Both

d. Neither

7.o Which of these is/are proper iambic pentameter?

a. I’ll lie, I’ll steal, just to make a buck or two

b. I used to be a kid of high ideals

c. Both

d. Neither

8.o Which of these is proper iambic pentameter?

a. Relief is the only thing on your mind

b. Relief’s the only thing that’s on your mind

c. Relief’s the sole thing on your mind, buddy

d. None of the above

9.o Consider the following lines:

Alas, Kinkade festoons jejune delights;

Mature beliefs incite harangues galore.

ooooooWhich line should come next, to follow the rhyme scheme?

a. His hackneyed style’s something I abhor

b. There’s something evil in his cloying scenes

c. My eight-year-old’s got better taste than that

d. Those cozy backlit houses: fricking trite!

10.o Consider the following lines:

The yuppie Zeitgeist sickens Uncle Bob,

So quickly trickle rotgut whiskey, man!

ooooooWhich line should come next, to follow the rhyme scheme?

a. Inebriation topples every caste

b. And yet he’s quite the de la Renta fan

c. He won’t forgive a Prada-wearing snob

d. Unless he’s drunk enough to lighten up

Answers to exercises

1. d

2. a

3. a

4. c

5. b

6. c

7. b

8. b

9. d

10. c

Final considerations

Of course there’s more to fine poetry than meter and rhyme. Alliteration uses similar consonant sounds to assist sentences in sizzling. Assonance hones the sonorous flow with close vowel sounds pouring forth. Hyperbole is the best device on the fricking planet for achieving emphasis. Synecdoche is powerful in the right hands; for example, the White House is using it to good effect these days. As for onomatopoeia, even just murmuring a phrase or two of it can cause a lot of buzz, and just spelling the word correctly can earn you an honorary degree from a polytechnic university. Stuff your sonnet full of these devices and you’ve got a splendid poetic calzone on your hands. (Stunning insights, vivid sensory descriptions, deep metaphysical contemplation, and lofty subject matter sure couldn’t hurt, either.)

So, suppose you’ve just written your first sonnet, and experienced none of the exhilaration I promised earlier in this post? Perhaps you’re just not doing it right. Go try it again, but this time with feeling.

I guess that’s it—my lesson is complete. But wait, there’s one more thing, lest I forget: feel free to send your sonnet on to me. I’d like to post your work on albertnet!

Addendum

For Christmas, my daughter Alexa (who read this post and passed the quiz) wrote a sonnet each for my wife and me. Here is the one she wrote for me.

oooooooooFor Daddy

If I could make a wish I’d wish to fly,

Up high I’d soar with birds up in the air.

If only it was true I’d start to cry,

I wonder what I’d give to be up there.

If I could make a wish I’d wish to soar

Or maybe just to fly a little bit

And now I think about it, life’s a bore.

But that’s not an excuse to throw a fit.

If I could make a wish I’d wish to glide,

To spread my arms and take off from the ground.

In one smooth motion I would be outside

To leave my room without making a sound.

ooooI think my family has that dream as well.

ooooIf it came true that would be really swell.