tonight I started walking back to you father
it was meant to be a stroll but then I started
walking faster father I started chanting all
the names of all the men I ever went to bed
with father my thighs were burning and my feet
were heavy with blood but I kept the pace and chants
of names up father listed them to fence posts
and the trees and didn’t stop and started getting
younger father and walked all night till I was home
just a spark in your groin again and told you not
to bring me back to life told you I repented
every name and had freed them of me father
I found this on a modern sonnet search. Not sure how it’s a sonnet. But wow. This poem had me speechless. I read it a few days ago and instantly wanted to hear what others had to say.
ReplyDeleteThe repetition of father sounded like farther when I was reading closer and slower.
this poem is so easy to flow with...it easily takes you down the path of the walk as well as the mind. I looked up the definition of Martyrdom: Definition of martyrdom
ReplyDelete1: the suffering of death on account of adherence to a cause and especially to one's religious faith
Before this definition I was reading the poem with a male narrator in mind until he got to "all names of all the men I ever went to bed with" and then I switched to female because my mind went down the road of sexual abuse by a biological father (but showed me my own bias of female/male assumed sexuality). Then it read more like the prayer of penance that it might be. But a penance towards death as its answer.
I do not believe this qualifies as a sonnet in any way??? But who knows!! lol.
Here are the Shakespearean guidelines for sonnet:
https://www.howmanysyllables.com/english_grammar/poetry/sonnet_rules#:~:text=Rules%20%26%20Rhyme%20Scheme.%20Shakespearean%20sonnets%20are%20broken,a%20problem%20and%20solution%2C%20or%20question%20and%20answer.
Def not a Shakespearean sonnet, haha.
DeleteDid you consider a gay male narrator?
I had a similar reading as you at first. I looked up the poem after I read it. I found a blogger who explains how the narrator is a male. He shared an abstrast that sounds like the author wrote it, but I don't know. Here is a link. https://medium.com/words-that-were-not-said/the-freedom-of-a-martyr-on-martyrdom-by-andrew-mcmillan-f25569a47b4f