Hi Andrew
I've been out of town and away from e-mail, hence the delayed response.
I'm sure the great sonnet discussion has moved on, but this is just to
say I think this is a fine poem, but outside my (no doubt arbitrary)
sonnet parameters.
Martin
andrew burke wrote:
> Here's a recent one, Martin, which is further outside the traditional frame:
>
>
> *A**n Upside-down Sonnet*
>
> * *
>
> * *
>
> 'I'll give you to the next passing Chinaman',
>
> my mother would say.
>
> It was the Fifties and such things were said
>
> without malice
>
> for there were few passing Chinamen
>
> in our home town.
>
>
>
> Fifty six years later I am
>
> an Australian man passing
>
> and Chinese kids look up at me
>
> without prejudice—a living
>
> breathing specimen
>
> of Western decadence,
>
> the Coca-Cola culture come
>
> flying over their wall.
>
>
>
> (As far as I know, Dorothy Hewett first did the upside down bit, but as I
> was in the southern hemisphere, I thought upside down was appropriate ...)
>
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