O! Corpse Flower

"O! Corpse flower of twilight's glory" is a poem I wrote about... (you guessed it) a corpse flower! I was interested by the brief life of the bloomed flower and thought it would make a good subject, albeit an unconventional one, for a sonnet.

At the time of writing this, I was still in college and in a Shakespeare class. Something I repeatedly noticed when reading some of Shakespeare's sonnets was his focus on running out of time, or how beauty can fade with time, or even how the brevity of something, such as life, can make it more worthwhile and treasured.

As is the case in Shakespeare's Sonnet 54, "O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem," when he compares a dying rose to a "beauteous and lovely youth" growing old. Roses, according to Shakespeare, are still valued in their deaths while other blooms, like the "canker-blooms" who "[d]ie to themselves" are not, but the youth who will eventually grow old will also still be treasured and preserved through his writing. Therefore, speaking broadly, writing can immortalize and preserve the memory of something or someone.

So, I chose the corpse flower and its haunting perfume. I hope you enjoy the poem and may give it life, so the memory of the corpse flower may outlast the few days its been given to bloom.

---

G.J. Brillante

O & Oh, a zine I made, containing my corpse flower poem.

The college zine where my poem was first published!