Metamorphoses by Leanne:

[Vistaldust]

Beautiful images. This poem makes me think of our desperate yearn to keep time frozen in our best moments, and the resigned acceptance of it's futility. This poem is above my level to critique on anything more than the feeling it gives me..........a kind of sadness which comes upon accepting something of life that I really don't want to.

[serge gurkski]

breathtakingly warm and colorful.


Thank you for the read!

[abu nuwas]

I now realise that it was this picture parts of the poem reminded me of, one which hung in the Tate when I was 15. I used to visit almost daily, to look at the Derains, Manets, Modiglianis and so on. The flower is not a rose, and it is breaking through an egg-shell, not stone; but this was it. The 'change the world' article with it, is a little sad now: young people are still young, but revolutionary movements? I don't think so.

http://www.pennilesspress.co.uk/annexe/surrealism.htm

[Leanne]

I don't remember that painting but I'm sure I must have seen it before... I do love Dali... there's a good bit of bacchanalia going on in the background, by the look of it, and I wonder if he's stuck Pygmalion up on his pedestal and let Galatea go free? That's a pretty weird Metamorphoses tie-in. Thanks so much for sharing that, Edward!

(PS. We've missed you)

[StevieFinn]

So that was a sonnet - Very beautiful, like a flower opening.

[newsclippings]

Everyone has a silly accent. Beautiful work, Leanne. As always.

[ChristopherSea]

Working my way through the hit parade. This one is lovely Leanne and it even made it into 'Ghost Dreaming'! One day, I will try to compose a sonnet and this will be my guide. That Sestet is mastery!

[NobodyNothing]

Holy fucking poetry, Batman! That be one soft and smooth and sweet lament, like a caramel river flowing wistfully 'tween me ears.

This was a good idea this particular forum. There's some real good stuff on this site by this congregation of poets, about as good as I read anywhere else. At least so moves me as much. But what do I know?

Props.

[Erthona]

Americans never rhyme things properly.

They just don't teach us correctly in our shuls!
---------------------------------------------
I've already given you far too accolades for your sonnets, to give you more on a regurgitated one.Too bad the title is spelled as it is, or I was ask to play Gregor!


Dale

[kindofahippy]

I love your sonnet, Leanne. The meter and content is all done so well that I can't see any need for improvement, and I don't see any cliches in the love theme. Could I nitpick? I'm still very curious, I apologize. This is a sonnet because of it's length, right? Fourteen lines that create a problem, with the solution in the last two lines, and a change in tone part-way through. The rhyme scheme can change or it can even be without rhymes and still be a sonnet.

So, if you changed the stress and meter, would it still be a sonnet? What if it was written in trochaic decameter? If someone writes a crown of sonnets, can the problem be presented in the first one, a tone change later, and then a solution all through the last one?

[Leanne]

Hiya hippy, sorry I missed this -- although sonnets in English are most commonly written in iambic pentameter, that's not what makes it a sonnet. Sonnets need to be lyrical (that is, dealing with emotion, abstract concepts or philosophies) and the best way to achieve this is through regular meter (sonnet means "little song" after all). Really, it's the question-and-answer or setup-and-resolution, with a volte (about-face) that makes the sonnet work. There are several contemporary sonnets that use no meter at all but still follow this basic pattern and because of their exciting use of sonic techniques and metaphor, they still work well. The key is to learn the rules before you break them, so that everyone knows you're doing it on purpose and not just because you can't be bothered learning the traditions

For me though, I don't see any reason to break with traditional meter because it's what I love doing and I daresay I'm not too terrible at it. My first sonnets were in iambic heptameter and they were no less sonnets than my later ones -- I still revert to the longer lines now and then but I probably wouldn't consider mucking about with the 2-part concept of the sonnet. If you write a crown that starts with all-problem and ends with all-resolution you don't really have sonnets in my book, you have cantos of 14 lines each.

[LorettaYoung]

When you and I were summer, and the sky
was greyer than the green that grew between
my linden and your oaken strength, serene,
eternal as the shadows passing by,
you whispered me a question; my reply
was lost upon the winds of might-have-been,
for change must come to every tranquil scene
and gifts from gods are not what they imply.

Forever is a dream lost to the dawn
and temples fall to dust beneath the years,
as roses split the stones and oceans dry;
yet boughs will bend and brave the tearing thorn
to claim the scars as treasured souvenirs,
and laugh until the summer, you and I.

The Original poem can be found here.

---

I thought it only fitting one of hers should be put forward. (I know she'd never put one of her own in the thread.) I chose the sonnet because the form work in it is nigh on perfect, as are the word choices. It's one of my personal favourites that we have on the site. If I could do a sonnet like this, I'd stay away from free verse.

---

This one poem reminds me most of what I am seeing and learning about form on this site:
I love how the poem ends on that beautiful hopeful light, and the sureness of the next summer's laughter. Loretta

[NobodyNothing]

I just wanted to re-highlight this one by Leanne for all you newbies and others who might have missed it.  Billy pointed it out.  

When beginning to write poetry, it wasn't long before it became clear to me that such an endeavor was like the flight of Icarus.  You were going for something, something so important to you it felt like life or death in its pursuit.  How close to the sun could you get before your wings melted and you descended back to a reality that that cynically burst the bubble of your poetic hubris?  

I like this one because it tried, it really tried.  

It's hug-a-poem day.

I hug this poem.   ><

[rayheinrich]

I just wanted to re-highlight this one by Leanne for all you newbies and others who might have missed it.  Billy pointed it out.  

When beginning to write poetry, it wasn't long before it became clear to me that such an endeavor was like the flight of Icarus.  You were going for something, something so important to you it felt like life or death in its pursuit.  How close to the sun could you get before your wings melted and you descended back to a reality that that cynically burst the bubble of your poetic hubris?  

I like this one because it tried, it really tried.  

It's hug-a-poem day.

I hug this poem.   ><

You can retain your very own copy of this illustrious poem, along with 44 others
(some even being, as God intended, free verse) in the form of a Kindle E-book:

Ghost Dreaming by Leanne Hanson (Author), Adam Henry Carriere (Editor)

for $2.99 U.S. Dollars here at Amazon U.S.* :
http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Dreaming-Lea...B00AP05DG6

You don't have to own a Kindle as there's a free down-loadable reader app for
IPhones, Androids(excepting billy), Apple, Windows, Tablets, or "The Cloud" (new-speak
for "You can read it on your browser")  here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/d...=200783640

*Heathen countries have their own pale imitations of Amazon.com such as Amazon.com.uk
and Amazon.com.au (anybody know what 'au' stands for? Oh, right: "Beer-Swilling-Mullet-Heads")
which are willing to accept weaker currencies.

[RiverNotch]

Yuss!
Word choices et al are nigh perfect (one marked down only because this isn't five hundred years old, hehehe), and the movement of the story is stunning: the pre-turn part has an incredible u shape, that, with each image, flits so smoothly between the direct and the symbolic, while the post-turn is such a brilliant uplifting of the entire message, even as it works to close the ring; and the whole feels so free, so pure, so immediately creative and yet thematically eternal...