Welcome to the endless high-school
Reunion. Welcome to past friends
And lovers, however kind or cruel.
Let’s undervalue and unmend
The present. Why can’t we pretend
Every stage of life is the same?
Let’s exhume, resume, and extend
Childhood. Let’s play all the games
That occupy the young. Let fame
And shame intertwine. Let one’s search
For God become public domain.
Let church.com become our church
Let’s sign up, sign in, and confess
Here at the altar of loneliness.
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COMMENTS
16 responses to “The Facebook Sonnet – Sherman Alexie”
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Damn!
Ouch. That hurt.
A sonnet, didn’t expect something so formalized from him.
A lot of his poetry is rhymed and metered, actually.
Sherman Alexie is one of the few living writers whose books I buy as soon as they appear.And for those of you who didnt expect anything so formal from him, check out his previous chapter books that have at least four or five outstanding villanelles.
Amen, Sherman!
There may be more wisdom in The Facebook Sonnet than all of Facebook itself. Thank you Mr. Alexie for being brave enough to say it.
New favorite poetic find.
Speaks to my existence
Like all good poets
No pretense
No smoke screens
Five chords and the truth.
I think we shame ourselves about the state fb has us in because it’s still so new that we compare it to life without it. But remember when we didn’t have it we were asking ourselves what happened to so and so. And we wondered but the only thing that happened was that fb only held a mirror up to us as we found what happened to so and so. And now we see how important it was to know the answer.
can someone explain this poem
He must feel that loneliness quite acutely, with the twenty Facebook pages he seems to have.
Can someone explain the meaning of the poem?
What is the form of this poem?
sonnet (shakespearian)