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Convergence

Iambic lines drafted in silt

are revised when glaciers melt

so verses ending in heroic couplet

are more epigram than sonnet.

Revised when glaciers melt,

continents submit to a warning.

The land is more epigram than sonnet

—no—more erasure than given form.

As continents admit the warming,

the coasts ebb and go.

Erasure gives them form.

Plastic adds a climax of metaphor.

The coasts ebb and forgo

iambic lines drafted in silt.

Plastic adds a climate of metaphor

that upends the couplet heroic.

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The language about poetry

From aubade to zuihitsu, 207 definitions of the forms, figures, and schools that shape the line.

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