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sonnet for harry styles & masculine postmortem

 

O, songbird of the new millenium,

seems it’s only a sign of the times that

you in your genderfucked florals are numb

to judgment from would-be aristocrats

of music, gatekeepers of sound enraged—

over what? your past, it seems, but do we

not all have one? you bring us a new age!

O, lavendered messiah from o’erseas,

if you are indeed spun from the same crushed

velvet as i, flavored from the same fruit,

tell me, please, before the last of the dust

settles & the deluge soaks this dried root.

O, prince of this lockjaw tenderness, king

of it, don’t let them take it—to it cling.




Gabrielle Hogan

levelheaded: sonnet for harry styles & masculine postmortem

 

What would Shakespeare think of a sonnet about Harry Styles? We think he would love it. Gabrielle Hogan makes fun of flowery Elizabethan language at the same time as she’s using it to her advantage, through humorous statements, exaggeration, and a healthy sense of celebration. The ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme is slant enough not to be easily noticed at first read. The “O”s, the shortened “o’erseas,” the not-so-iambic pentameter, the over-the-top metaphors as in “gatekeepers of sound enraged” for music critics—all come together to give the poem a sharp, witty, and comical tone.

 

The main theme is of course Harry himself. He is the “songbird on the new millenium,” the “lavendered messiah,” the true “sign of the times.” His “genderfucked florals” are beyond reproach. He is the new millennial, the harbinger of “a new age.” The speaker mentions perhaps a demeaning past, but whatever it may be is beyond the poem’s scope. The first two quatrains focus on Harry as manifestation of “masculine postmortem.” It is a joyous read, and remains lightweight through the first half.

 

The last six lines, however, bring in a more tender, less confident tone. The poem becomes personal, as the pronoun “i” appears, relating to Harry through being “spun from the same crushed velvet.” The speaker wants to know something, “tell me, please,” she asks, as if wanting to confirm the aforementioned correspondence is true, that they are indeed “flavored from the same fruit.” The final couplet does not reach confirmation but instead exposes hope and vulnerability, as the speaker asks her “prince of this lockjaw tenderness” to not “let them take it,” and in a yoda-like manner, “to it cling.”

 

We ask what “it” is – the “dried root”? the common denominator connecting a hero and the folks of his generation? Or more generally, can “it” be the new type of masculinity Harry carries with such ease and reassurance?

 

Knowing how mutable social progress is, and how quickly liberation can be turned into reactionary fuel, we join the speaker in imploring Harry and his generation: cling to it. Water the dried root. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 

 

– The Editors