Many thanks for all the comments on this - I am a sonnet addict, I'm afraid.
I had great fun writing this. I wonder if we can tell which poems gave their
authors great pleasure as they wrote, and which were produced with frowns.
Bob, this poem was inspired in part by the discussion on another list of a
certain writer beginning with B. I've never read anything by him, and was
not tempted to do so. Apparently his poetry is based on the fact that he's a
drunken, druggy ,crass, womanising scumbag, but so honest about it ...
The funny thing is that I've had a couple of Americans quibble about the
poetic philosophy of the piece, without realising that denial of form and
metre etc would scarcely be presented as a sonnet if it was sincere. Ah,
well.
Kind regards,
      grasshopper

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 12:07 PM
Subject: Re: New sub: manifesto


> Hi grasshopper,
> A mischevious literary piece here! The first line amazes me: instead of
> doing what poem's first lines customarily do - draw the reader in - this
one
> says the opposite (and still does that!). That's brill!
> And it's brillness goes on! (I mean there's utter irony in saying "my
> forte's raw words" when all the craft of sonnet-making's so evident!)
> The style, and language too, is a blast from the past.
> And the title, too, belongs where the poem's coming from!
> Did you have a particular group in mind? A particular poet who could have
> written this? (Mischevious me almost wants it to be subtitled "a poem
> discovered in the lost papers of - who was the poet you wrote about
before -
> Hulme? or something like that...)
> I think I'll pin this on my wall on New Year's Eve as one of the bright
> moments of 2002!
> Bob
>
> ps - you mention apple sauce comments... (LOL) but what I'm tasting here's
> more like the world's finest - and Bradford's or Withington Road's
sauciest
> - Vegetable Rogan Josh!
> B