Sonnet on Questions on Sonnets

[John]

Ella suggested that The Pike may work as a sonnet. And then I realised -

I've never written in such form before
and know not whether grammar to invert.
Or force some rhyme and garner others' ire
And start with And and then the whole work hurt.

But sonnet forms hark back to ancient times,
which leads me to believe they're worth their salt.
So many love their sing-song pattern rhymes
that any other form amounts to fault.

I'll start each line with Shift pressed firmly down
And wait and see if there's some modern take
That punctuation can't be broken down
It must be there and not dumped in the lake

So off we go with this my first attempt.
I know, I know, it's dreadfully unkempt.

[Leanne]

Metapoetry is such fun, and metasonnets even moreso. Because of your second line, you effectively get away with all inversions and forced rhyme, which is a neat trick. The only time this doesn't come off well is your take/lake rhyme, which is stretching the humour beyond breaking point and a very clear "yep, can't think of anything better here". Love the couplet.

This was a very enjoyable read, thanks John.

[billy]

this can't be your first. thousandth maybe but not the first. the meter's spot on and the glib remarks work well within the poem. i think the one concerning caps is the pinnacle of your twattishness. no constructive crit here other than to say well done

Ella suggested that The Pike may work as a sonnet. And then I realised -

I've never written in such form before
and know not whether grammar to invert.
Or force some rhyme and garner others' ire
And start with And and then the whole work hurt.

But sonnet forms hark back to ancient times,
which leads me to believe they're worth their salt.
So many love their sing-song pattern rhymes
that any other form amounts to fault.

I'll start each line with Shift pressed firmly down
And wait and see if there's some modern take
That punctuation can't be broken down
It must be there and not dumped in the lake

So off we go with this my first attempt.
I know, I know, it's dreadfully unkempt.

[ellajam]

You may want to use the lake line to comment on "an awkward break". If you swapped S2&3 you might get more of the midway twist you need.

Fun read, thanks for posting it.

[John]

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I nearly put this at the end of The Pike in response to ella, just to see if I could get the metre and structure going, then thought it would confuse the issue.

The points raised - capitals, starting with conjunctions, punctuation - were genuine, so wrote the piece around that. Apart from the fun poem in the practice section (exercises in iamb), this really was the first written attempt (although listening and reading comprehension in poetry night-classes thirty years ago undoubtedly helped with the iambs.)

Many thanks again for the positive input. Appreciated.

[Leanne]

We regularly mutilate sonnets here.  It's more or less our favourite pastime, so it's lovely to have another victim participant.

[ThePen]

Ella suggested that The Pike may work as a sonnet. And then I realised -

I've never written in such form before
and know not whether grammar to invert.
Or force some rhyme and garner others' ire
And start with And and then the whole work hurt.

But sonnet forms hark back to ancient times,
which leads me to believe they're worth their salt.
So many love their sing-song pattern rhymes
that any other form amounts to fault.

I'll start each line with Shift pressed firmly down
And wait and see if there's some modern take
That punctuation can't be broken down
It must be there and not dumped in the lake

So off we go with this my first attempt.
I know, I know, it's dreadfully unkempt.

I think that this poem is pretty good. I appreciate the fact that it flows pretty easily. Your writing is pretty easy-going.

Your line "And start with And and then the whole work hurt" is a bit vague to me. I think that, however, you get lost in the subject matter. The third stanza is mostly filler without much substance. It seems that you are mostly trying to rhyme in this stanza without adding anything worthy of note.

And the last stanza departs from the previous three. I still think that this is a good effort.

[John]

Your line "And start with And and then the whole work hurt" is a bit vague to me.

The whole piece is a spoof on the grammatical structure of a sonnet. Starting a line with AND (plus inversion) normally gets the no-no in modern poetry. Plus I wanted to make sure about the metrics.

Thanks for taking the time to read it. I'm looking forward to working on The Pike - after I get the outboard electrics fixed.  

[billy]

but it is pretty...

[Sharramon]

Hey I'm new to this site! Well one thing I can comment on about sonnets is actually one of the first real pieces of advice that I've ever received when I was starting out poetry. The sonnet is written in an iambic pentameter, or y'know in plain English it's written with ten syllables in five groups of unstressed stressed. The unstressed stressed is very important because the sonnet depends on it to flow very smoothly. What you usually want to go for when you're writing one is the 'perfect rhythm'; you want to put words with natural stresses where they should be and unstress where they should be.

One of the best examples of this being used that I can think of is 'When I heard the learn'd Astronomer' by Walt Whitman. The poem uses free form until right at the end he clinches this amazing perfect rhythm iambic pentameter.

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars
ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum

To show you that the stars are perfect. Well in his case he uses it to suddenly make the poem flow perfectly and you feel this content. But with sonnets you do it the other way round. You always keep the flow going then only break it when you really want to draw attention to something. 

As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
   This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
   To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.


Sonnet 73 by Shakespeare. The trip is in the 'As the death-bed' the rest of the poem still has the ba-dum ba-dum thing going on.

I've never written in such form before


Here you have stress and unstress mixed about everywhere! And that's the reason your poem doesn't really read as 'smoothly' as sonnets you might have read in class. Your second line


and know not whether grammar to invert.



actually HAS perfect rhythm. So it'll actually read a lot better. Have a go at it. Sonnets sound a lot more polished when you get this down and it helps wow others ;D


Well I hope I've helped!

[Misanthrope]

Genuinely entertaining.  The last line in the first stanza is fantastic.  There aren't any criticisms I would suggest.  The intentional run-on sentence in the third stanza is funny as well.  The only things I Could say are perhaps continuing the obviously sarcastic theme in the second stanza by going to old English or something.  And on a more nit-picky level, if you read a couple of the lines, using the first as an example, 'such' is generally going to be the important word in that phrase meaning that it would get stressed....  which breaks the meter.  The reason I think it would be the important word is because you are trying to emphasize that you have never written a sonnet.  Perhaps, 'I've never written such a form before' or something...  Just my humble opinion!!!   I wouldn't change anything though.  It accomplishes the goal entirely.  Well done!








I've never written in such form before

and know not whether grammar to invert.
Or force some rhyme and garner others' ire
And start with And and then the whole work hurt.

But sonnet forms hark back to ancient times,
which leads me to believe they're worth their salt.
So many love their sing-song pattern rhymes
that any other form amounts to fault.

I'll start each line with Shift pressed firmly down
And wait and see if there's some modern take
That punctuation can't be broken down
It must be there and not dumped in the lake

So off we go with this my first attempt.
I know, I know, it's dreadfully unkempt.

[John]

Many thanks, Misanthrope. Always appreciated when others take the time to read and comment.

Cheers