The Haunted House

[heslopian]

The house is proud but old this day and you
still here, the porch at rest beneath your toes,
approach the lawn in tennis shoes while blue
sky holds the house's gaze; the structure knows

we're leaving now, and sighs with waning grace
as floorboards settle in to rot, the dust
on sideboards breeding then, the antique face
of one dead clock damning this household rust.

We walked each hall, locking every single door
where once daylight was hid behind, the blank
windows regarding it as simple law;
we must obey. How to explain the cold dank

smell which sprung from every cranny then, while
we crossed the dark front hall, echoing tile.

[billy]

first off excellent effort jack, simply excellent.

you read up on the shakespearian sonnet didnt you you bad boy.
what we have to watch for when doing a sonnet is the fact we often slip into archaic yoda speak.
which is okay in a period piece but not in a current one.

the other main thing on the sonnet is enjambemt
if we read it it has a see saw quality that moves from line to line repeating itself in recurring iams short foot/long foot; ie;
am i am i am i am i am i.

it then starts again exactly the same way on the next line.
am i am i am i am i am i.

blue sky would be the reverse of this.

blue sky on the same line would be correct.
blue
sky
on two line reverses the foot of the iamb.
and we end up with ;
am i am i am i am i am i.
i am i am i am i am i am.

the break up of the sonnet you did really well. though it can be broken in many ways, i prefer the breaks you did with the verse.
i think the content is secondary when embarking on a sonnet, as more heed be spent at first on the form.

a lot of modern sonnets, non shakespearian don't hold with the iams. metre or style. personally i think if you want to write a sonnet you should learn a few of the classic ways.
thanks for the read jack hope you stick with it.

[heslopian]

Actually I didn't know this was a Shakespearean sonnet. One of the few learned people on DU was kind enough to teach me about how different strength syllables at the beginning and end of lines create different effects. From there I decided to put ten syllables on each line and affect some sort of iambic pentameter. Like you noticed with “blue sky” this wasn’t that successful but I think I gave it a pretty good go. I might have been a bit too ambitious by also having a classic rhyme scheme.
The poem was originally supposed to just be three quatrains but in order to round it off properly I needed another couplet.
I really understand what you mean about content coming second to form. How this turned out was a long way away from my original vision, which I couldn’t make work with the structure. Thanks for the kind words and feedback Bilbo.

[billy]

the rhyme scheme you used is a must in this type of sonnet jack.
and yes you gave it a great shot.

that you strufggled with with making it fit the structure is what i was saying about the form is important.
one of the reasons many modern poets slip into the yoda speak when doing these sonnets is the very fact they're making words squeeze where they shouldn't, they reverse the foot of the iam or add words.
instead of
will you come to the ball, it ends up as
will you to the ball come. the reason they do it is so it fits a rhyme or often because they confuse sonnet as need yoda speak.

[heslopian]

That yoda speak is actually one of the things I was determined to avoid. I scrapped whole verses because their syntax seemed contrived, a pet peeve of mine in poems with form.

[billy]

a good way to do a sonnet is thing of a subject and then lay out the end rhymes. top to bottom.

after that you just fill in the blanks.

[heslopian]

That's a great idea. Thanks Bilbo