First "Italian" Sonnet

[ThePinsir]

This one is written specifically for someone I know, so I wanna make sure it's nice and crisp! One of my main concerns is the volta; I'm not sure if the sonnet is supposed to do a complete 180, or rather just slightly shift focus. Meh. I'm still new

Also, not sure of a name for it yet. I'll get there.
--------
Version 4.0
Her Tapestry

Ephemeral prime will turn and flee
when beauty's but the pattern of the past.
The dye of silken skin can never last
throughout the stands. Split threads will fail to see
The Reaper creeping forth to set you free.
Regret for wasted time that spun too fast,
unfurled dreams that never came to pass
will devastate your tightly wove esprit.
As youthful hue is yet upon your face
(and breasts to rival Helen's, nice and round),
the pleasures wrought by spring are ever yours!
Between my arms, time's ripe to take your place:
exploring life, the binding strings unwound,
and forthwith soaring to forbidden doors.


========================

Version 3.4
...no name. still...

Ephemeral prime will turn and flee
when beauty is the substance of the past.
The dye of silken skin will never last
throughout the strand. Broken eyes decline to see
The Reaper creeping forth to set you free.
Regret for wasted time that spun too fast,
unfurled dreams that never came to pass
will devastate your woebegone esprit.

As youthful hue is still upon your face
(and breasts to rival Helen’s, nice and round,)
the pleasures wrought by spring are ever yours!
Between my arms, time's ripe to take your place;
exploring life, the binding strings unwound,
and forthwith soar to find forbidden doors.

===================


Version 2.3:
still unnamed...

Ephemeral youth will turn and flee
when beauty is the substance of the past.
The tone of silken skin will never last
inside the strand. Broken eyes decline to see
The Reaper creeping forth to set you free.
Regret for wasted time that spun too fast,
unfurled dreams that never came to pass
will devastate your innermost esprit.

As youthful hue is still upon your face
(And breasts to rival Helen’s, nice and round,)
The pleasures wrought by spring are ever yours!
So in my arms I pray you'll take your place
Exploring sides of life that rest unfound,
Together free to test forbidden doors.


==========================
Version 2.0:
still haven't decided a name

Ephemeral youth will turn and flee,
then beauty’s but the substance of the past.
The tone of silken skin will never last
inside the haze. Broken eyes decline to see
the reaper! Reaching out to set you free…
Regret for wasted time that spun too fast,
and dreams unfilled that never came to pass
will devastate your innermost esprit.

As youthful hue is still upon your face
(and breasts to rival Helen’s, nice and round,)
the pleasures wrought by spring are ever yours!
So in my arms I pray you'll take your place
exploring sides of life that rest unfound,
together free to test forbidden doors.
==================

Original:

The time will come when youth will forthwith flee
And beauty's just a relic of the past.
The tone of silken skin can never last
When nature takes its course and humbles thee.
You'll hear the reaper come to set you free;
Regret for wasted time that spun too fast
And dreams unfilled that never came to pass
Will devastate your innermost esprit.

With youthful hue as yet upon your face
And breasts of Helen standing ever round,
The pleasures wrought by spring are ever yours!
So by my side I pray you'll take your place
Exploring sides of life that rest unfound,
Together free to test forbidden doors.

[heslopian]

The syntax in this sonnet is admirably straightforward, and accomplishes an almost perfect rhyme scheme. There's no twisting or writhing in your lines, which is common among "new" poets trying to mesh structure and cohesion. In short, for someone so modest this work is very good My sole quibble would be that there's no central image for the sonnet to hinge on, so it slides into forgettability. Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, for instance, had as its image the decayed statue, which is what stays in my mind when I can't remember the words. JMHO, of course. Thank you for the read!

[Todd]

Just a minor comment, there are certain lines that might be interesting to enjamb (obviously doing this will screw up your entire rhyme scheme so I realize it's an undertaking). Line two and three for instance: Just makes sense but is mostly a filler word so maybe you have room to experiment. I like your words in L3 "the tone of silken skin" Silken skin itself is somewhat cliche but having tone apply to skin tone is very nicely done. I wonder if there would be some way on line two you could end with "tone" and have it mean some sort of noise then break the line to skin tone.

Just a thought to push this one a little more.

Best,

Todd

[billy]

a great effort. i think the volta should be a shift from one thing to another, question to answer or more often problem to solution (i think)
while it has to be i'm not sure it has to be 180 deg but it has to be a definite shift.

the first like of the poem is your strongest though argueably you end couple is in the sonnet. because of this it needs to stand out. because it;s a sonnet doesn't mean you should use words like thee unless you want an archaic feel.

after a few reads i think you did a great job. a bit wordy in order to fit the meter but a good solid sonnet.
thanks for the read.

This one is written specifically for someone I know, so I wanna make sure it's nice and crisp! One of my main concerns is the volta; I'm not sure if the sonnet is supposed to do a complete 180, or rather just slightly shift focus. Meh. I'm still new

Also, not sure of a name for it yet. I'll get there.
--------

The time will come when youth will forthwith flee first part feels a little weak. it's also a little odd using forthwith and time will come, it does work but it made me pause and think
And beauty's just a relic of the past.
The tone of silken skin can never last
When nature takes its course and humbles thee. first part is a large cliche
You'll hear the reaper come to set you free;
Regret for wasted time that spun too fast like how spun ties in with silken above
And dreams unfilled that never came to pass
Will devastate your innermost esprit. good use of esprit for the rhyme. not an obvious choice.

With youthful hue as yet upon your face
And breasts of Helen standing ever round, i like this line but...it reads as though helens breasts are independant of the woman
The pleasures wrought by spring are ever yours!
So by my side I pray you'll take your place
Exploring sides of life that rest unfound,
Together free to test forbidden doors.

[ThePinsir]

I had to google "enjamb". I didn't know that was even really an option with sonnet forms; I just assumed each line had to complete a thought. I'll definitely play around with it in some future poems. As far as putting it here...I'd have to re-write the whole damn thing. Too much work lol

I think I'm starting to see what people mean by "wordy". It's hard for me to keep strict iambic pentameter without a lot of "of, the, at, to, etc." But the more classical sonnets I read, the more I realize that almost none have perfect iambic pentameter...so maybe I haz some wiggle room.

Cliché...sigh...I'll work on it.

Ozymandias was really cool (thank God for spark notes)!

Thanks, everyone. I think this'll shape up to be my best yet.

[jdeirmend]

Meaning-wise, the poem presents a tension that I really love. The octave proceeds in much the same way that many other canonical love poems do: an effort to persuade, on the part of a virile male bard, his beloved away from her coy witholding. The rhetorical angle is aging, the decline of the relevant faculties, the possibility of regret: in a word, the ominous, impending, inescapable nature of death. Then for the sestet. The speaker points to his beloved's youthful beauty, and proclaims that it is "ever hers." And yet, he'd just spent the previous lines explaining the ephemeral nature of this very thing. How to make sense of this?

This "forever" is to be found, ambiguously enough and as the sestet resolves, in the assumption of the act of love. But this can only take place by the speaker's side, in the traversing of "forbidden doors." This is awesome, to me, in part because it points to youthful flesh as a conduit between spirits. The point of beauty can be as much to use as to admire it; its sensual exploration can serve as much to draw the Eternal in us into communion as anything else. Some ideas from counter-enlightenment thinker J.G. Hammann drive the point home:

"Meanwhile, the woman's temptation is to an artificial innocence; a secret envy of God's incorporeality and impassibility. The defence of one's virginity is another cryptic attempt at self-sufficiency. Instead, the woman must brave the ‘tongues of fire’ in a ‘sacrifical offering of innocence’, in order to realize her Godlikeness; which is not to be found in bodilessness and the absence of passion, but in passionate creativity; in the willingness to be incarnate." - Stanford Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, J.G. Hamann

It's by no means a line that hasn't been used before . . . but I'll be damned if it's not mackin' at its finest. Hope it does the trick.

[billy]

shakespeare sometimes deviated from an iamb i his sonnets.
we have a thread about what constitutes iambic pentameter that milo gave good answers in. i couldn't find the bugger so i google for this.

Although strictly speaking, iambic pentameter refers to five iambs in a row (as above), in practice, poets vary their iambic pentameter a great deal, while maintaining the iamb as the most common foot. There are some conventions to these variations, however. Iambic pentameter must always contain only five feet, and the second foot is almost always an iamb. The first foot, in contrast, often changes by the use of inversion, which reverses the order of the syllables in the foot. The following line from Shakespeare's Richard III begins with an inversion:

/ × × / × / × / × /
Now is the winter of our discontent

Another common departure from standard iambic pentameter is the addition of a final unstressed syllable, which creates a weak or feminine ending. One of Shakespeare's most famous lines of iambic pentameter has a weak ending:[3]

× / × / × / / × × / (×)
To be or not to be, | that is the question

This line also has an inversion of the fourth foot, following the caesura (marked with "|"). In general a caesura acts in many ways like a line-end: inversions are common after it, and the extra unstressed syllable of the feminine ending may appear before it. Shakespeare and John Milton (in his work before Paradise Lost) at times employed feminine endings before a caesura.[4]

Here is the first quatrain of a sonnet by John Donne, which demonstrates how he uses a number of metrical variations strategically. This scansion adds numbers to indicate how Donne uses a variety of stress levels to realize his beats and offbeats (1 = lightest stress, 4 = heaviest stress):

I had to google "enjamb". I didn't know that was even really an option with sonnet forms; I just assumed each line had to complete a thought. I'll definitely play around with it in some future poems. As far as putting it here...I'd have to re-write the whole damn thing. Too much work lol

I think I'm starting to see what people mean by "wordy". It's hard for me to keep strict iambic pentameter without a lot of "of, the, at, to, etc." But the more classical sonnets I read, the more I realize that almost none have perfect iambic pentameter...so maybe I haz some wiggle room.

Cliché...sigh...I'll work on it.

Ozymandias was really cool (thank God for spark notes)!

Thanks, everyone. I think this'll shape up to be my best yet.

[tectak]

This one is written specifically for someone I know, so I wanna make sure it's nice and crisp! One of my main concerns is the volta; I'm not sure if the sonnet is supposed to do a complete 180, or rather just slightly shift focus. Meh. I'm still new
Hi thep,
A good start. Maybe you want it all and you want it now? You need a title...poets can do that. They have words and imagination. Give it a title. Please. Slight line by line. Don't worry about EVERY aspect of poetic construction at once.
Also, not sure of a name for it yet. I'll get there.
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The time will come when youth will forthwith flee Forget forthwith. Legal, pretentious, superfluous.
And beauty's just a relic of the past. Stop capitalising the line starts.You must be reading a very old poetry book. It was never a "good" idea.
The tone of silken skin can never last
When nature takes its course and humbles thee. Prithee fair poet, that thoust shoudst twain to be an maker of verse. Sheesh!
You'll hear the reaper come to set you free; I love semi colons. Not here
Regret for wasted time that spun too fast
And dreams unfilled that never came to pass drop the "and". Now you can use "unfullfilled"
Will devastate your innermost esprit. Nice work when you settle down and THINK. Esprit is possibly inspired. Some may argue

With youthful hue as yet upon your face As yet is "still"
And breasts of Helen standing ever round, Comedic. You may as well have said "hanging ever round"
The pleasures wrought by spring are ever yours! Ever the ever
So by my side I pray you'll take your place
Exploring sides of life that rest unfound,
Together free to test forbidden doors. Tired ending. Have a strong espresso and rewrite the ending.

As others said, there is a lot to like in this...just cut out the other bits. Overall this is a very good piece of work. The problem you have is that of identity...I should say the character's identity. Inconsistent so lacks veracity. Remember Cyrano de Bergerac?
Best,
tectak

[tigrflye]

--------

The time will come when youth will forthwith flee forthwith? Who talks like this?
And beauty's just a relic of the past. this is a pretty line.. but relic of the past seems redundant.. what else are relics if not from the past
The tone of silken skin can never last
When nature takes its course and humbles thee. reword "nature takes its course
You'll hear the reaper come to set you free;
Regret for wasted time that spun too fast
And dreams unfilled that never came to pass
Will devastate your innermost esprit.

With youthful hue as yet upon your face
And breasts of Helen standing ever round, "ever round"..followed by "ever yours".. it bugs me.
The pleasures wrought by spring are ever yours!
So by my side I pray you'll take your place consider changing one of the words "sides" to something else
Exploring sides of life that rest unfound,
Together free to test forbidden doors.

I like the theme.. I take away the thought that youth and beauty is fleeting, so while you still have both, take my hand and let's live it up. I think some of the old-school phrasing/words comes off my tongue as trying too hard when I read it out loud but that is probably just a personal preference.
Overall, I like it.
-Jenn

[ThePinsir]

Version 2.0 in the OP. Guys, thanks SOOOO much for your feedback!
I played around a bit with enjambment, tried to get rid of some wordiness, and tried to deviate from STRICT i.p.

You guys are awesome.

[Todd]

Some nice updates in the edit. Comments below:

This one is written specifically for someone I know, so I wanna make sure it's nice and crisp! One of my main concerns is the volta; I'm not sure if the sonnet is supposed to do a complete 180, or rather just slightly shift focus. Meh. I'm still new

Also, not sure of a name for it yet. I'll get there.
--------
Version 2.0:
still haven't decided a name

Ephemeral youth will turn and flee,--That's a nice personification, a good word choice with ephemeral, and a good first line. It feels like it might be missing a foot (though maybe that's my pronunciation of ephemeral.
then beauty’s but the substance of the past.--Maybe instead, "when beauty is the substance of the past."
The tone of silken skin will never last
inside the haze. Broken eyes decline to see--inside the haze feels a bit vague
the reaper! Reaching out to set you free… --probably capitalize the reaper. The exclamation point might be a bit too strong. I also don't know if the ellipses add much.
Regret for wasted time that spun too fast,--Spun is an interesting word when you think of the fate
and dreams unfilled that never came to pass--Look at the word unfilled. It means the same thing as never came to pass. Why not substitute it then with a word like unfurled which will play of the idea you started with spun, and makes us think of life's tapestry (fates again) being rolled out). Just a thought.
will devastate your innermost esprit.

As youthful hue is still upon your face
(and breasts to rival Helen’s, nice and round,)
the pleasures wrought by spring are ever yours!
So in my arms I pray you'll take your place
exploring sides of life that rest unfound,
together free to test forbidden doors.

I like how this is developing.

Best,

Todd

[ThePinsir]

^ I really like the "unfurled" idea. Version 2.1 Coming right up

---

OP updated with version 2.1

I hope the "è" doesn't make it seem archaic; I used it because it helps tremendously with the meter.

[milo]

i see you already have a ton of good observations on this one but I do love a petrarchan so i thought i would offer what i could.

This one is written specifically for someone I know, so I wanna make sure it's nice and crisp! One of my main concerns is the volta; I'm not sure if the sonnet is supposed to do a complete 180, or rather just slightly shift focus. Meh. I'm still new

Also, not sure of a name for it yet. I'll get there.
--------
Version 2.0:
still haven't decided a name

Ephemeral youth will turn and flee,
then beauty’s but the substance of the past.

The first line has only four feet. In addition, ephemeral youth is both cliche and ephemeral adds nothing anyway, youth is by definition ephemeral. What does "turn" say that "flee" doesn't? beauty isn't /but/ the substance of the past, beauty /is/ the substance of the the past. (but adds nothing other than odd diction)

The tone of silken skin will never last
inside the haze. Broken eyes decline to see

Inside /what/ haze? If the eyes are broken (not sure what happened there) then i would think they would "fail" to see, not decline to see.

the reaper! Reaching out to set you free…
Regret for wasted time that spun too fast,
and dreams unfilled that never came to pass
will devastate your innermost esprit.

I think you might want to avoid ellipses in poetry, especially here, maybe just a stop. "dreams unfulfilled" is both cliche and inverted. I would think with "unfulfilled" that "never came to pass" would be superfluous" and another cliche as well. "innermost" doesn't really seem to add much to esprit. I would consider every modifier you have actually, many of them seem like just padding to me.

As youthful hue is still upon your face
(and breasts to rival Helen’s, nice and round,)
the pleasures wrought by spring are ever yours!
So in my arms I pray you'll take your place
exploring sides of life that rest unfound,
together free to test forbidden doors.
==================

Who is Helen? a friendly neighborhood hooker, perhaps? If you are alluding to Helen of Troy, I think you need to draw the allusion (as well as the purpose) a little clearer.

"ever yours" reads like archaic for "always yours"
"wrought" is also archaic diction, consider "brought"? or perhaps something else."So, in my . . ." is inverted as is the next line.

"forbidden doors" feels a little puritanical for modern verse.

As a whole, i think it is admirable that you are using forms. i think you should consider reading a couple modern sonnets (leanne posts a couple nice ones right here. you don't want to lose the lyricism, but you do want to curb the archaism and inversion.

Thanks for posting,

good luck

[ThePinsir]

^ very insightful observations. I know I'm bad about "padding" and I'm working on the archaic part. That's just a bad habit, really.

thanks for taking the time to type all that out.

(googling "modern sonnets")

[milo]

^ very insightful observations. I know I'm bad about "padding" and I'm working on the archaic part. That's just a bad habit, really.

thanks for taking the time to type all that out.

(googling "modern sonnets")

I would check out some right on this board.

Actually, if you want to read some nice modern sonnets made by poets just screwing around, check here:

http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/showthread.php?tid=9294&highlight=iamb

http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/showthread.php?tid=9299&highlight=iamb

http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/showthread.php?tid=9300&highlight=iamb

[ThePinsir]

oops. posted a stupid question. found answer myself.

next task: work a bit of this 'tapestry' imagery (that I didn't originally intend, lol) into the sestet.