On the Sonnet
by David Solway
I know what the critics値l say: too late
for such archaic forms, such proleptic
elegance. Or too intensely private
for the common reader, too dyspeptic,
just the grumbling of some paralytic
rolling about in his sonnet-wheelchair.
Tell me, friend, who値l criticize the critic,
as Juvenal might have asked, and who値l spare
the poet something to be wary in,
a little counterprint or afterbook?
Who値l knock the ultracrepidarian
from his swivelchair, parasite and crook
that he is? Who値l instruct him to be nice,
to give the sonnet justice, not just ice?
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