Diane Seuss; or when is a sonnet not a sonnet?

[TranquillityBase]

Well, it has 14 lines.

I'm not sure, TqB. I read on Wikipedia that Diane Seuss is an 'educator', so this relaxed approach to writing sonnets just seems rather calculated, somehow. Do you ever get the impression poetry is selected for publication based on its potential impact rather than its merit? (Will it get people talking? Will it get the New Formalists a bit wound up?) Well, I dare say I'm a cynical old thing. I don't dislike the poem you've posted, but I think I'd find it more appealing as free verse. And even then, I prefer a lot of the stuff I've read on PigPen.

To be honest, I haven't read enough yet (I ordered her books but they've yet to arrive) to tell how this works as a series of sonnets.  I could only sample the first five.  Initially, it seems like a stunt.  But I'm likely to change my tune if I read them all and they are as powerful as her non-sonnet poetry.  She has a couple on the Academy of American Poets page that actually are better than this particular poem.

I wrote one of these non-sonnets for NaPoM and I'll cynically say it seemed pretty easy.  But a greenhorn like me is likely to say anything.