Anastasia Vassos:

Biddeford Pool is a small coastal town at the very edge of the Atlantic, protected from the ocean by rocks that protrude from the shore, by the wild roses that line the road. I have rounded the turn on my bicycle countless times to arrive at what for me is a sacred place in its solitude. Though the houses of the very wealthy crowd the road opposite the bushes filled with rose hips in late fall, only once or twice have I seen other humans there. It’s a place where I experience both joy and longing; life-breath and the specter of death at the edge of the land, looking out to an ocean that appears infinite.

In writing this poem I’ve attempted to express through words the experience of my deepest feelings surging through my body on an ordinary bike ride. The sonnet form sort of came up as a plausible way to contain these huge feelings – the form’s constraint ironically allowed me freedom to express what is almost inexpressible. My sonnet makes use of the 14-line tradition, and the turn to the final couplet. My sonnet is non-traditional, eschewing iambic pentameter in favor of blank verse. A further upending of tradition occurs when the final two lines do not rhyme: the rhyme occurs in the chime of “breath” in line 12, coupled with “death” in the last line.