My Love Sent Me a List

Subversion is at the heart of “My Love Sent Me a List,” both stylistically and thematically, evident in its feminism and its homage to influences like Shakespeare. The most obvious subversion is of the sonnet format. While a Shakespearean sonnet is a strict form, this poem inverts the form by only sticking to some aspects of it. The poem is 14 lines, and some of the lines are written in iambic pentameter, but most of the lines are written in varying meters, and there is no established rhyme scheme. There is also a volta in the 13th line of the poem, following the traditional “turn” present in Shakespearean sonnets. Davis had the sonnet form in mind when writing, but as a contemporary poet who often writes in free verse, she has no qualms in subverting the traditional form.

On top of subverting the technical aspects of a Shakespearean sonnet, the content of the poem also subverts typical Shakespearean themes of love. For one, the poem is written by a woman and is about a man. That the woman is the one with editorial power and that the man is the subject of her judgement subverts Shakespeare’s entire sonnet output, as he was a man writing for (presumably) a woman.