to begin, and no matter how deconstructed the form, in a collection of sonnets
it is somewhat unavoidable that the reader may expect to interpret a love poem.
What I mean by this is that said love poem may not necessarily be some overt
or passionate elucidation rather may contain yearning, an object of desire, the whim
to achieve or to behold. This sonnet, really, treads air; Wile E Coyote— held afloat
only by the belief ground remains beneath feet; only you can determine it as sonnet. Note:
one could even challenge its characterisation as poem. In fact, there is little stopping you;
I would actively encourage it. This does not make it any less of a poem, though.
Regardless of how little lyricism is contained within the language, the mere
fact its language is framed as a poem is suggestive that, beneath the veneer
of reference, self-reference, and irony, all waning interest, somewhere
there is poem. To meet the reader on the page, however, it becomes necessary,
as undressing an onion’s meat, to rustle away at the poem’s skin for the raw, rare,
memory-frothing, slanted world, that without renders the piece unnecessary.
Scott Lilley
Scott Lilley is living in the north east and writing poems. His work has been published in Butcher’s Dog, Wet Grain, and 3:AM, and is forthcoming in BOLD Arts Zine’s anthology on masculinity. He is currently part of the team at Osmosis and is just happy to be here.
OSMOSIS PRESS 