Sonnets First Place Third Place

Vintage Colorado Poetry  /  Poem of the Week  /  February 20, 2006

A traditional sonnet is a fixed form, while a hybrid sonnet is a fluid form, constrained by the sonnet's total lines, fourteen, and little else. Some hybrids forsake  rhyme, for instance. Rita Clagett, of Crawford, takes second in Vintage Colorado Poetry's Shakespeare 'out West' competition with her hybrid sonnet, "Wild Mustards."  "Wild Mustards" is a pleasure to the senses.

Wild Mustards I know the sound that ravens make as they play, the sound of the sandhill cranes migrating south; I've heard the fawn when the lion claims its prey, the scream as the neck breaks in the powerful mouth. I've seen clouds of snow geese lifting as one from prairies of rice and grain; morning sun has bathed me, naked, on top of the snow-cold mountains, water has poured on me, naked, from thermal fountains. I know the names of grasses, and when they seed, can smell true spring in the tang of wild mustards. Others have won Emmys, benefits, degrees -- my success is measured by passing vultures. Where finches, grosbeaks, redwings warble and talk, there daily, slowly, I have been learning to walk.                                      --Rita Clagett Copyright (c) 2006, Rita Clagett

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