Sonnet to Basil by Anne Pierson Wiese

Sonnet to Basil

by Anne Pierson Wiese

The seeds in the packet were so tiny and dry,

all fallen into the bottom fold like blue grit--

it was hard to believe that even one would sprout--

so I planted them all in the window box. Why

not? What was there to lose? Soon, a multitude

of minute green heads emerged from the damp soil,

pushing every day toward the light, toiling

with what came to seem heartbreaking ceritude,

since every day, for the good of those final four

plants that would need room to fully mature,

I plucked the living threads out like a grim reaper

in training, each uprooting feeling more

brutal than the last, each frail sprout between

my finger and thumb a dumb reproach.

This poem is from Wiese's 2006 book, which won the Walt Whitman Award for that year, and is entitled Floating City (published by Louisiana State University Press).

You all know I love food poems! And I have been playing around a lot more with forms in my own writing. Two reasons this poem first jumped out at me.

Then, of course, is that wonderful first image of the seed packet, an image anyone who has ever planted anything from seed can relate to. Then the extreme act--planting them all! Ha! I laugh because that is exactly what I would do.

But the second stanza sets us up for something . . . "What was there to lose?" That is rarely a good sign in literature--the speaker is tempting the gods, goddesses, universe, fate, etc. And in a sonnet, it is also setting us up for the volta (change).

The stanza goes on to give us the tiny buds, the green heads of the basil plants reaching toward sunlight, with a certainty.

A certainty? Of what?

Ah, the third stanza. The speaker, "like a grim reaper/in training," pulls, thus killing, all but four plants. Again, most if not all gardeners know this has to happen--flowers, vegetables, many shrubs and bushes, even houseplants need water and sunlight and room.

The speaker's feeling of guilt/sadness/unease carrying us readers through to the end. (Notice, too, that almost all of stanza 2 and all of stanzas 3 and 4 is just 1 sentence.) Her hands are brutal, the sprouts are frail. She has turned her thumb and forefinger into a mute executioner, destroying the certitude and the multitude.

I love how the "I plucked the living threads" in stanza 3 has some build-up, but it is still a change in the poem (volta!). I also enjoy the rhyme scheme here. It follows the Italian sonnet form: ABBA, CDDC, EFFE, GG, but not traditionally with exact rhyme. It modernizes the rhyme. The first two stanzas follow the tradition, although Wiese uses slant rhymes for BB and DD, and stanza 3 pushes even that. The third stanza's middle lines really stretch even the definition of slant rhyme: mature and reaper. The final couplet doesn't even bother trying!

In a sense, it is a new take on the form. Yes, there's exact rhyme, but then let's go slant rhyme, slant rhyme plus a syllable, slant rhyme if we really emphasize (one might say mispronounce) the "er" of the two words, and then just don't do it.

I hope it does not sound as if I do not like this, because I do. I love most types of play within a poem--any kind as long as the poem still makes some sort of sense. This form takes nothing away from the content but adds an extra bit of fun for careful readers.

Because I have been reading a lot of contemporary sonnets in all of their forms, I have noticed a trend: questions! They often include at least one question (something else I love to see in poems). Was there a meeting about doing this? :)

Wiese's book is full of modern sonnets, as well as free verse poems. As a lover of food poems in general, and of basil in particular, this is one of my favorites from her book.

Now go make some pesto and read more poems! Why not check out poems I posted here long ago--they are all great poems!