Heat In The Blood Poem by John Beaton

"The Sun Also Rises" is widely regarded as Ernest Hemingway's greatest book. In it he describes bullfighting and running with the bulls at Pamplona. I thought I'd try to capture the frenzy of that participation in a poem. I bracketed the running with the history of pagan rituals that led to it and with what happens afterward- the bulls travel the streets because they're the route from the corral to the bullfighting arena.

The poem is addressed to St. Fermin, the person for whom the festival at which the bull-running occurs is named. It's written in 14-line sonnet form with three four-line stanzas, each rhymed abab, and a rhymed closing couplet. The base rhythm is anapestic hexameter, i.e. each line has six anapests (da-da-DA) . There's a pause in the middle of each line so that the groups of three anapests, along with some alliteration and bulky vocabulary, mimic the power and pace of the running, e.g.

and the BULL-pack are SURGing like GALLeons (pause)as they FORGE through this FLESH-and-blood STRAIT,

This poem has been previously publishedand in print and anthologized by "Able Muse' and published in "Eyes On BC" and "Better Than Starbucks".