Not a nonmember, just inactive.
Intro'd to eratosphere, back the end of February 2012, I was put off by the stringent requirement that I must tender something like 15 critiques ere I posted any of my own work...to be torn apart. Having no stomach for a razing of my work, nor the appetite to study others' intent on scrutinizing, you may all fault me for sitting on my membership now for so long.
I did appreciate this call for sonnets, only to be chagrined at the reality I hate to acknowledge, namely that this form once classified as "the most exquisite form of poetry" and forever under criticism for its difficulties and the strictures of that "legitimate" Petrarchan/Italian (at least in 1881 it was legitimate and the Shakespearian was "illegitimate") rendering; forever toyed with, Keats wishing to arrive at a better mistress for the soul's motions, and Shelley's Ode to the West Wind accepted as a collection of sonnets, sadly by 2013 finds its adherent in disarray, and the form itself losing its essence as has ever been the not-so-subtle push.
Yet I was introduced to eratosphere by a fellow sonneteer who had happily devised a year-long daily sonnet challenge. As we earnestly began, he then diligently put more study into the form and its history than I've ever bothered to do. And subsequently paid dearly for it by succumbing to the notion that it really has no rules, thence losing a promising career as a sonneteer, unless he can be recovered.
How shall I be excused for bothering you with such a discussion? Perhaps I cannot be.
Nonetheless, I began in the hopes of encouraging a return to standards, lest the generation to come lose that most exquisite form.
Thank you very much for creating such a contest. It is not exactly an eye-opener and I enjoyed entering. It is a lesson I likewise appreciate, which yet strengthens my position in more ways than one.
Now I'll try to be a good girlie and critique the entries....then you can throw rotten eggs at me, hahaha.
ttfn,
Miss Jenny Gordon
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