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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SONNET: 9 by HAYDEN CARRUTH

Poet Analysis

First Line: TO SEE A WOMAN LONG OPPRESSED BY FEAR
Last Line: of home to heaven, that there has never happened

To see a woman long oppressed by fear
come free at last is joyous and a wonder.
As a poet I don't care for the stale remainder
of conventional sonnetry, yet just to savor
my own outpouring pleasure in this affair
I must lean backward lazily, as it were,
in the old romantic bed, an absconder
and apostate in my era. Today I wonder
where love's ideas lead me, and I don't care.

Well, she is like a @3flower@1. Let's say a Turk's-cap
lily. Somehow the nodding horn has lifted
and its complex hazel smile has opened
to the light. More, more, it has @3wafted@1
a clear high tone like a trumpet from the steppe
of home to heaven, that there has never happened.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org



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