Robert Pack's An Echo Sonnet

An Echo Sonnet by Robert Pack, is written to an empty page. With the page itself as the audience, it makes for a very unique message. It is divided into two vocal sections; a voice, and an echo. Pack begins addressing the empty page and it’s emptiness. “How from emptiness can I make a start? Echo: Start. And starting, must I master joy or grief? Echo: Grief.” Pack is asking how he can start on an empty page, and to start, should he write about joy or grief? With each line, the repeated word is the word the reader takes away from the sentence. In line three, the author obviously worked past his writer’s block and begins to compose his thoughts. “But is there consolation in the heart? Echo: Art. Oh cold reprieve, where’s natural relief? Echo: Leaf.” Is there comfort in the heart? Oh cold postponement, where is natural …show more content…
Echo: Ease. If death is not, who is my enemy? Echo: Me.” After a life of postponement and no natural relief, death is not the enemy, but ourselves! We get in our own way and only when we die can we be at peace. “Then are you glad that I must end in sleep? Echo: Leap. I’d leap into the dark if dark were true. Echo: True.” These lines refer to the eternal sleep of death, the same that gives us ease. However, I can not explain the leaping into darkness. “And in that night would you rejoice or weep? Echo: Weep. What contradiction makes you take this view? Echo: You. I feel your calling leads me where I go. Echo: Go. But whether happiness is there, you know. No.” In the night you would weep, you make it so, and where called you go but finding happiness there is unknown.
This echo sonnet I believe is a conversation between Robert Pack and himself sorting out his thoughts on paper. He addresses the empty page and it’s emptiness. The overall message of to starting to live and death, is relayed to the reader by Pack’s use of rhetorical questions and echoing