The Facebook Sonnet

A prominent feature of this sonnet is the number of run-on lines. In a run-on line (also called enjambment), the grammatical construction of a phrase is not complete at the end of a line but continues into the next one. The reader must go to the next line to find the sense or meaning. In Line 4, for example, the meaning of the last line of the first quatrain cannot be determined until the first word of the second quatrain: “Let’s undervalue and unmend / The present” (Lines 4-5). The end of Line 7 provides another example: “Let’s exhume, resume, and extend” (Line 7), an incomplete phrase that is completed by the first word of the next line, “Childhood” (Line 8). Line 9, which ends, “Let fame” (Line 9), and Line 10, which ends “Let one’s search” (Line 10) are also run-on lines. When the grammatical sense of a phrase or sentence is completed at the end of a line, that line is known as “end-stopped.” Line 12 provides an example: “Let church.com become our church” (Line 12).

The run-on lines contribute to the frequent use of a caesura, which is a pause, indicated by a comma, semi-colon, period, or other form of punctuation within the line. The caesura has the effect of varying the rhythm and slowing the line down, especially noticeable when the poem is read aloud. Line 2 contains an example: “Welcome to the endless high-school / Reunion. Welcome to past friends” (Lines 1-2). Lines 5 and 8 also contain caesuras in the form of a period, as do Lines 9 and 10, making this a prominent feature of the poem.

Assonance is the repetition of nearby vowel sounds. An example occurs in the phrase, “Let fame / and shame” (Lines 9-10), in which the “a” sound is repeated. The assonance underlines the meaning of the phrase, as the next word reveals: “Let fame / and shame intertwine”; the assonance helps to intertwine those two words at the sound level. The sonic association (or even equation) of fame with shame creates an emphatic tension. Similarly, in the first line of the second quatrain, “present” (Line 5) is assonant with “pretend” (Line 5), and these words are psychologically disparate; to pretend is to dissociate from the present (or the actual). The assonance again creates an emphatic contrast that plays into the poem’s rhetoric.

Alliteration is the repetition of nearby initial consonants. An example is “kind or cruel” (Line 3). Although the consonants differ, the sound is the same. The alliteration enhances meaning at the level of sound, since the speaker is stating that everyone is welcome, no matter how they have behaved in the past. In that sense, there is no difference between those who were kind and those who were cruel, and the alliteration helps to bring out that meaning. Similar to the effect of assonance, the alliterative association of, and contrast between, kindness and cruelty underscores the indiscriminate nature of Facebook’s “friend” qualifications. A different effect occurs in the repetition of “sign” (Line13), where the alliteration creates a sense of momentum and subtle mock fanaticism: “Let’s sign up, sign in, and confess” (Line 13).