Filling in the Form

by Janet McCann

Objectives are easy to write:  The student
Will be able to write a sonnet, but after that
Comes the Assessment, measurable output,
Quantifiable criteria for sonnetness, meant
To challenge:  crisp precision of perfect iambs,
Rhyme scheme—sliding scale of difficulty,
Petrarch worth more than Shakespeare?  And re
The subject:  sex two points, God three times
That, but then what about the thick mist
Over the lake?  And then of course the grade,
Eighty percent of what?  The Platonic shade?
The unwritten, unwritable work that must exist
Somewhere in the clouds, behind them all,
Majestic in meaning, just fourteen lines tall?