I haven't really mentioned this much online, but this year I've decided to start adding poetry again to my life on a regular basis, the first time since my "slam years" in the 1990s I've done so; and unlike my slam years, this time I've decided to concentrate on formal poetry only, or at least academic-friendly poets even if they're free-verse ones. It's just...something for my personal life, you know? Just for me and for no one else, simply so I as a lover of literature yet a professional book critic can have that personal, intimate connection too, that profoundly romantic and personal connection to something in literature just like most casual non-professional literature lovers have, that so many book critics lose sight of after a couple of years of being full-time book critics. I think this is so important as a critic in order to stay on top of your game, in order to continue being a great and popular critic over years and decades, is to maintain a sincere and all-consuming love for literature; and part of that, frankly, is to have a little part of that love that is all weird and nerdy and pretentious and just for you, just for your own little weirdo nerdy obsessive pleasure, knowing full-well that the interest probably comes off as weirdo and nerdy and pretentious to others who aren't into it. Lose that, and you ultimately lose why people become lovers of literature in the first place, of why they're reading your book reviews in the first place, even if your reviews are for mainstream novels that have nothing to do with this artsy little pretentious thing that is keeping you a passionate lover of literature in general.

Anyway, so one of the things I've been doing privately behind the scenes this year is very slowly re-reading the entire creative output of Modernist poet e.e. cummings, who just happens to be my most favorite poet of all time, as well as a 900-page biography of his life; because another thing I've been doing, see, is starting to collect notes for a brand-new full-length non-fiction book, in this case a hopefully witty and creative long-form analytical look at the entire life and career of e.e. cummings, specifically approaching it from the standpoint of, "It's now the 2000s, and most academes currently see cummings as that gimmicky little nutjob all the people like who don't actually know anything about poetry." I thought it would be interesting to both do a long analysis of cummings' work, from a legitimate standpoint of how it fits into the overall developments of Early Modernism happening around him at the time; but to also address the entire book from the standpoint of cummings' current "ghetto" status within the academic realm, of how many professors currently don't see him as a "legitimate" poet but rather a commercially-friendly hack, perpetual hero of bored teens who think that deliberate misspellings and bizarre punctuation can somehow take the place of sincerely great poetry. And that's something like I said that I'm just doing behind-the-scenes in my life these days, i.e. in the hours I never talk about in my personal journals, and something that perhaps two years from now I'll have something massively cool and unexpected to show everyone, or not. We'll see, I guess. (Oh, and I've even got a title for this witty intellectual non-fiction book about cummings, too, which I guess should come as no surprise -- "a lover and his only love," a line from my favorite poem of his.)

And then another thing I've decided to do is actually start writing poetry again; but like I said, this time formal poetry only, and in fact right now specifically nothing but Shakespearean-style sonnets. And why sonnets? Well, why not? They've worked for smart writers for half a freaking millennium now, after all, so who am I to poo-poo the format? And in fact, by describing what exactly a Shakespearean-style sonnet is, maybe that'll lead us into why I've decided to start writing formal poetry again, versus the unstructured slam pieces of my youth (i.e. "short stories cut into funny-looking lines")...

--To start with, all 14 lines of a Shakespearean sonnet are written in "iambic pentameter;" so in other words, if read out loud, the English on display should come out in a natural performance rhythm of "duh-DUH duh-DUH duh-DUH duh-DUH duh-DUH" (pause), "duh-DUH duh-DUH duh-DUH duh-DUH duh-DUH" (pause).

--The rhyming scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet follows the pattern: ABAB / CDCD / EFEF / GG.

--The first stanza of a Shakespearean sonnet establishes the theme of that poem; the second stanza builds and expands on that theme; the third stanza introduces an unexpected element; and the fourth half-stanza resolves it all, often in a poignant or ironic way.

And like I said, maybe all those elaborate rules kinda show you why I decided to start writing formal poetry again in the first place, and why in general people still continue to write formal poetry; because all these rules, all these constraints, in theory make a writer concentrate a lot more on what exactly they're saying, pay a lot more attention to the exact words they're using to express those thoughts. This is part of my middle-ages, after all, as I've talked about here before, is starting to understand certain big topics in certain new ways; for example, that the entire subject and pursuit of "poetry" is not really about anything formal per se, or shouldn't be about that, but rather about trying to express oneself using the absolute minimum amount of words possible, with each and every one of those words holding an intrinsic power unto itself. When all is said and done, that's really what poetry is all about, is trying to express a thought in as unique and powerful and minimalist a way as possible; and that's the entire reason the formality and rules of it all came about in the first place, not the other way around, that the rules HELP a writer find a powerful minimalist voice in which to speak, not that you should be seeking a powerful minimalist voice just so you can adhere to the rules. Now compare this, for example, with a lot of the literal verbal diarrhea you saw in the slam community in the '90s, I now realize in hindsight, the sheer number of times when a writer would take three entire minutes to express around 30 seconds of original thought...

There are lines I keep re-PEAT-ing
I say there are lines I keep re-PEAT-ing
Because I ultimately don't have anything IN-teresting to SAY
And so I keep re-PEAT-ing

Because this is my PO - em
This is my PO - em
Yes, motherfuckers, I say that this is my PO - em
My PO...
...EM, my PO...
...EM

Jesus fucking Christ. No wonder they'll be making fun of us '90s slam poets for centuries to come.

Anyway, so here it is, below, my first sonnet actually written since deciding to write sonnets again in the first place. I'm not sure how often I'll publicly share these in the future for now, but I wanted to at least put the first one up. And in fact, that's another big reason why I decided to start writing sonnets and other formal poetry at this particular moment of my life; because there are certain realities of my life from the last five years or so that I've been feeling more and more like finally exploring in detail, but are very personal and odd and embarrassing issues (unemployment, hunger, sexual solitude, confronting my assholic behavior), and so am not sure how to best go about exploring them. And I figure that formal poetry is probably the best way for now, expressly because I can couch all my thoughts in such a metaphorical way, and have a step of emotional removal from it all that might make it easier to write down and record. But that doesn't necessarily mean I want to be sharing all these poems in real time with complete strangers as I actually write them, which is why I probably won't be posting a lot of these upcoming sonnets at my blogs; more likely that I will simply be holding on to these very quietly on my hard drive here at home, and maybe (maybe) self-publish a compilation a year or two down the road, long after my brain is removed from the immediate heat of actually writing them.

Jeez, I only meant this to be a one-paragraph explanation of what a sonnet is; I don't know how it managed to spin so out of control today. Anyway, here's the sonnet, below. Hope you enjoy.

Today my skin feels odd, electrified
Dry and soft, like someone else's flesh
The warming bond that forms when lovers slide
The day their skins most perfectly enmesh

That perfect feel; your lover at their best
Sunday mornings, high and hot and flushed
There never being a reason to get dressed
The thrusting firm, the conversation hushed

I touch myself today like she would
Feel the sparks so gently dance and play
Wonder if it's healthy, if I should
Worry if it'll finally be okay

And so instead I go out in the rain
So sensitive to touch I still remain