God’s sake, don’t write a sonnet! What’s the point?
That boy you like will still be fully dressed,
And other poets still be unimpressed
(In fact, their noses may go out of joint).

Feeling is first! Form’s just an afterthought,
And rhyming’s unforgiving work at best,
When every single line feels like a test.
So, should you write a sonnet? You should not.

Oh, Petrarch, Shakespeare, had their vogue, it’s true,
But really, fourteen lines is awfully long.
Best get in — cut the middle — finish strong.
Who wants a sonnet? You should write haiku.

Trust me, I’ve thought this through and through: put down the pen.
The sonnet’s day is gone, and will not come again.

Image: Waiting for Poetry Reading? University of Washington Bookstore, by Flickr user J.Brew, published under a Creative Commons  Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) license.

Much as this may seem to be mere self-referential poetry-poetry, it is actually no such thing, but rather a perfectly legitimate comment I wrote to an article on How to Write a Sonnet, which appeared here. So there.