| The American Sonnet was made famous by | | | | Jumping from a gliding aircraft paratrooper's door |
| Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins in the well | | | | Fighting on arrival and spitting flame for the land |
| known sonnet with the first line of All we need is | | | | they love |
| fourteen lines. Additionally, "American Sonnet" | | | | Delivering the winning score one could not ask for |
| appears in Billy Collins's Sailing Alone Around the | | | | more; |
| Room (Random House, 2001). The American | | | | Wearing silver paratrooper's wings on their |
| Sonnet does not follow any particular rhyming | | | | muscled chest |
| pattern. Frankly, the main way of identifying the | | | | Stumping airborne jump boots on their rugged |
| sonnet is the fact that it has fourteen lines. There | | | | kicking feet |
| are times when the sonnet is written with five | | | | Knowing they are the meanest and fighting best |
| stanzas in the tercet form such as the piece | | | | so obsessed |
| entitled, Sonnet, by Robert Pinsky. Additionally, | | | | Feared by the enemy to tangle with or even |
| one may write the sonnet using a pair of four-line | | | | want to meet; |
| and three-line stanzas similar to the Romantic | | | | Prepared they are to face the heat of battle |
| Sonnet written by Charles Simic. Finally, one may | | | | without defeat |
| even ascribe to the reversed Italian sonnet | | | | Carving a fighting stance they even balance while |
| format by beginning the sonnet with the sestet | | | | in a dance: |
| of six lines and ending with an octave of eight | | | | Gaining victory their final goal; they move stealthy |
| lines as used by John Ashbery in the sonnet At | | | | on a tweet |
| North Farm. The American sonnet form is | | | | They are "Devils in baggy pants" dubbed as |
| consistent with the American personality of not | | | | fighting mad |
| being restricted by imposed rigidity. | | | | Meeting and surpassing any test above the bloody |
| American Paratroopers | | | | rest |
| Descending from above soldiers ruggedly fighting | | | | America's fighting best soldiers descending from |
| tough | | | | the West! |