I went camping alone last night;
O-verhead, baptized in blackness,
B-reathing streetlights distantly
A-ged. I looked away, and yet,
F-loating brashly, every eye
G-arish and knowledgeable
K-ept careful surveillance over
M-y bonfire in the inky woods.
Author’s Note: “Stars” was published in Parnassus: Taylor’s Art and Literary Journal on February 19, 2009. Many thanks to the team who considered this work for publication. A description (also published in the journal) of this poem is as follows: The poem, “Stars”, is a semi-perfect sonnet (eight lines, the first with eight syllables, and the rest with seven syllables) about camping alone in the woods underneath the stars. In this type of poem, the first line introduces the topic and the other seven discuss it, which creates a point about perfection. Also, each seven-syllable line begins with a classification of star (by spectrum, from hottest to coldest) which, to draw your attention, has been purposefully separated from its line by a dash. This poem was inspired beside my own bonfire, and was written as a metaphor for community; however, regardless of how “Stars” is interpreted, I hope you will make your own impression.—
Copyright of Jessica Anne McLean, July 23, 2008, all rights reserved.
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The Rose 
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