Episode #129 Beyond Love - Sonnet Week Ep. 5

Connor and Jack close out National Poetry Month 2021 with a series of episodes exploring the history and enduring popularity of one of poetry's iconic forms: the sonnet. In episode five they travel forward hundreds of years and explore sonnets that go beyond the bounds of love to describe war, internment, and much more. Poems featured include "The Road to Corbie" by American war poet John Allan Wyath and "Barracks Home" by Toyo Suyemoto.

The Road to Corbie

By: John Allan Wyath

Our staff car flies and trails a long-spun haze

over the looping road and the surge and fall

of the heaving plains ~~ quick dusty tree trunks throw

their flickering bars of shadow in our eyes.

A wood ~~ men leading horses out to graze ~~

a misty bridge, and past the lumbering crawl

of crowded lorries ~~ low hills all aglow

with tufts of trees against the evening skies

and long blond hill slopes catching level rays

along their quilted flanks ~~ and under all,

the deep earth breathing like a thing asleep.

And there, Corbie ~~ her brittle walls brought low ~~

a brick-choked wreck, in which her ruins rise

like gravestones planted in a rubbish heap.

Barracks Home

By: Toyo Suyemoto

This is our barracks, squatting on the ground,

Tar papered shacks, partitioned into rooms

By sheetrock walls, transmitting every sound

Of neighbor's gossip or the sweep of brooms

The open door welcomes the refugees,

And now at least there is no need to roam

Afar: here space enlarges memories

Beyond the bounds of camp and this new home.

The floor is carpeted with dust, wind-borne

Dry alkalai, patterned with insect feet,

What peace can such a place as this impart?

We can but sense, bewildered and forlorn,

That time, disrupted by the war from neat

Routines, must now adjust within the heart.

Find us at our website: www.closetalking.com/

Find us on Facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking


Find us on Twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking


Find us on Instagram: @closetalkingpoetry

You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at [email protected].