Sonnet 60 - John Berryman

Sonnet 60 - John Berryman

Today is it?  Is it today?  I shudder

For nothing in my chair, and suddenly yawn.

Today I suddenly believe.  Since dawn

When I got up, my muscles like a rudder

strain crosswise from this work.  I rise and mutter

Something, and hum, pace, and sit down again

Hard.  A butterfly in my shoulder then

Stops and aches.  My stomach swings like a shutter.

As the undergrounds piston a force of air

Before their crash into the station, you

Are felt before your coming, and the platforms shake.

So light, so small, so far still, to impair

Action and peace so….risks we take make true

Maybe our safeties….come for our risk’s sake.

http://adyingeye.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/sonnet-60-john-berryman/

This poem is done in Petrarchan (Italian) form. There are a few modifications that John Berryman makes. For starters, the rhyme scheme is not strictly ABBAABBACDECDE but rather ABBAACCADEFDEF. "Dawn" and "Yawn" do not rhyme with "Again" and "Then" but it does generally maintain the expressed format. The volta/turn is exactly where would be expected from a Petrarchan sonnet. I picked this poem because I love John Berryman's collection of poems known as The Dream Songs. I basically just investigated the sonnets he had written until I found one I really liked (ideally one without a sappy love theme). This sonnet in particular spoke to me because it deals with travels. This sonnet reflects on the daily comings and goings of a man, and then compares them to the routine of life. The theme is an image of humanities fleeting nature, but with the ability to focus on the individual.