More poetry.
What’s that you say?
MOAR POETRY!
You got it! In my continuing celebration of National Poetry Month, today I’m reprinting my punny Shakespearean sonnet about the subjunctive, because I am a dork. (Those of you who’ve been with me for a long time might remember how much I love sonnets! And grammar, for that matter. And grammar humor, come to think of it. I’m beginning to think this poem was inevitable.)
This little weirdo has somehow placed 2nd in the Poetry Society of Texas contests (2016) and 3rd in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies contests (2018), because, apparently, all those folks are dorks too. It was subsequently published in the NFSPS prize anthology Encore, and now here it is for you dorks. 😀 Enjoy!
If, Indeed
If all the world should poll grammarians
about the need for the subjunctive tense
and they decided we’re barbarians
whose use for it we shall henceforth dispense,
the people by and large would likely shrug.
The elderly would simply shake their heads.
The middle-aged with smiles rather smug
would claim the thing already had been dead.
The teens would ask what was it anyway,
and kids would hear the slogans shift to past.
The teachers, grateful of the extra day,
would dare adjust their lesson plans quite fast.
If all the world this ordinance were borne,
the poets, still, the poets—how we’d mourn.
© Annie Neugebauer, 2013
Just a quick reminder before you go: Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 4 by Red Room Press is out TODAY! It includes my creepy story “Cilantro.” You can order yourself a copy now! And if hardcore horror isn’t really your thing, you can still get my story “Cilantro” in its original home, Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinn by Tyche Books, which leans less horror and more fantasy, but they’re both great anthologies!
Thanks, and have a wonderful week!
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