Standing "O" Sonnet
The new season of the Portsmouth Poetry Hoot continues on Wednesday, Oct. 7, with featured readers Elizabeth Kirschner and Doug Holder. The Hoot, which is sponsored by the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program, is held at Café Espresso, 800 Islington St., Portsmouth, beginning at 7 p.m. Sign up for the Open Mike which follows the featured readers.
A sonnet is a highly demanding poetry form. Some creative writing instructors say the way to learn to write a sonnet is to write 100 of them. My own attempts at a sonnet usually die around line 6, so I am always appreciative of a poet, like Fred Samuels, who can sustain a casual, conversational tone and communicate a thought within the set pattern of rhyme, length, and meter.
Fred, who passed away this past June, was a great friend of poetry, a dedicated practitioner of the art and a strong supporter of other poets. One of his unrealized ambitions, his good friend Joann Duncanson told the Hoot audience Sept. 2, was to receive a standing ovation for a poem of his at the Hoot. Although Joann said she told him there was no such thing at the Hoot, Fred did receive his “Standing O” after she read this sonnet. As we all rose to our feet and applauded, I’m sure Fred—somewhere—was smiling his sweet, shy smile.
STANDING "O" SONNET
To get a standing "O" is my desire.
The strategy, you see, is rather clear:
I’d have to set your minds and hearts on fire
and send a message strong and so sincere
to make you willing, nay, determined now
to leave your comfy seat and leap to feet
and clap and cheer and shout a splendid "WOW"!
It would be so wondrous, beautiful and sweet
to give a worthy comrade such support,
and recognize his efforts and success;
his work and struggles wouldn’t be for naught,
and maybe pleased you just a little – yes?
Alas, there’s just one truth I surely know –
THIS ain’t the verse to win my standing "O"!
- Fred Samuels