[New-Poetry] terror dactyls

[Bob Grumman]

Well, it's all a matter of what you think essential to haiku and sonnets 
after hundreds of years of them.  A problem with your outlook seems to 
me what isn't a sonnet?  For my book on haiku and related poems, I 
spelled out pretty exactly what I think makes a haiku, and it's a set of 
elements (how else can one define anything?), but not all needed, just 
most of them, if properly weighted.  Season word is good but not 
essential.  Juxtaposition of images essential.  Etc.  I haven't done the 
same with the sonnet but feel if you allow any 14-liners, you lose the 
essence of the sonnet OR you simply confuse the issue with the 
complication of having to define kinds of sonnets, and we already have 
enough kinds of sonnets.

As for no regular iambs, well, a lotta people got fooled.  But I think 
you define iambs differently from me.  For me, they're just dah DAH dah 
DAH.  I don't care if the second DAH is weaker than the first dah.  And, 
of course, one can't stick to a strict rhythm forever, but one should do 
so long enough to establish it.  And call it out of meter when it is, 
not say it's some strict meter everywhere, no matter what it does. 

Soon I'll settle all this PERMANENTLY at my blog.  Maybe.  At any rate, 
it's a fun topic.  (And I like lots of poems their authors call sonnets 
and I don't.)

--Bob