Form and Structure
Susan's Poem, pg. 42
I have to disagree with the final verdict on the sonnet version of this poem. It felt jarringly stilted in comparison to the earlier drafts and completely diminished for me the original impulse, so much so that it was as if written by someone who was watching a documentary on Susan rather than feeling her dreams from the inside out. Even the fact that it was given such an expositional title took me out of the moment before I even dipped into it. The newly structured poem stumbled into form, whereas the earlier drafts flowed naturally and, by the very lack of structured design, took me with Susan to her imagined worlds. It had a lack of self-awareness that led me to see as she saw, whereas the new form felt like receiving an engraved invitation to a sleepover party. When we discussed the issue of form in class, and David brought up the point of how it challenges the poet to use phrases that he or she might not otherwise have played with, I felt in agreement with him but viewed this particular experiment with Susan’s poem as one such attempt where the poet failed the challenge. I’m a little disconcerted to find the sonnet structure of Susan’s poem labeled “enhanced” by the text, with particular attention given to the “chatting at work” (one of the changes I disliked the most), but I suppose these are the areas in which it’s clear that the impact of poetry is nothing if not subjective. I wonder how I would have responded to it had I not seen the editing process at work. I doubt I would have been moved by Susan’s poem in sonnet-form, but I don’t think I would have wanted to see it in unstructured form, either. I think I probably would have just passed it by as a poem that didn’t do much for me one way or another, which would have been a shame. I love how evocative of childhood dreams this poem is.
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