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Unread 09-20-2017, 02:55 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Default Sonnet 101

I'm usually in the 'not keen on poems about poetry' camp. But I decided to make an exception if they're a) really good or b) silly. So here's a 'b' I just knocked up.

Sonnet 101

You'd like to write a sonnet, but just can't?
Think all your 'vers' is 'libre' at its heart?
The rules can bend, you know, rhymes can be slant.
Enjambment's useful too. Then you can start
a sentence and just watch it go, careening
round the bend of several other lines.
An argument is key, so that the meaning
creeps up like a hungry snake that dines
on…truth or something…(similes, you learn,
will fill some space). And look, we're nearly done!
Now all you need's 'the volta'. A funny turn.
The bit that makes the reader say, 'What fun!
I see things slightly differently this time'
(Then slap the lid on with a final rhyme)

Anyone? Ha...
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Unread 09-20-2017, 03:08 PM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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That is quite well done, Mark. Shades of Pope in Essay on Criticism. Use of the time/rhyme rhyme is especially apt.
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Unread 09-20-2017, 03:39 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Thanks Aaron, I shall have to read it. All I really know of Mr Pope, shamefully, is The Rape of the Lock which I had to study for my A levels many years ago. And that he gives very good epigram.
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Unread 09-20-2017, 03:43 PM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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The specific similarity I had in mind is his consistent use of describing X while at the very same time doing X (e.g. as you enjamb your mention of enjambment). Here's my favorite example from Pope:
A needless Alexandrine ends the song
That like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
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Unread 09-20-2017, 03:48 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Ahh! And I have a snake in mine too! Maybe I have read it... I plead honestly unconscious plagiarism if I have! But I'm sure I haven't...hmm

Edit: Did he say 'talent borrows genius steals?' or was that someone else haha

Edit edit: Oscar!

Last edited by Mark McDonnell; 09-20-2017 at 03:53 PM.
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Unread 09-20-2017, 03:52 PM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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It's not unlikely you've encountered those lines outside the context of the whole poem—they're quite famous.
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Unread 09-20-2017, 03:55 PM
Andrew Szilvasy Andrew Szilvasy is offline
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Mark, this was fun; it works so well as educative verse. Coleridge has a few, too. Here's more Pope:
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense;
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow:
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Here's the Coleridge "Metrical Feet"
TROCHEE trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yet ill able
Ever to come up with dactyl trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long;—
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapæsts throng;
One syllable long, with one short at each side,
Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride;—
First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer
Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud high-bred racer.
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Unread 09-20-2017, 04:27 PM
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RCL RCL is offline
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I came. I saw. I swooned! Instant classic, Mark.

This is the closest I've come:

Sonnet Stanzas

Within my room, I work to finish lines
that might support the stanzas of a sonnet,
and try to dovetail them as an octet.
But there are crucial problems with my rhymes
before I even smooth the fourth—such signs
of instability, beyond mere nit,
require an innovative retrofit,
to square the verse with classical designs.

But then the lady whom I hope to woo—
not Will’s or Petrarch’s—spells my stanzas’ doom:
You’re pazzo if you think these dives’ll do!
I cannot fret, for she gives me the clue
that rhyming June and moon may cure her gloom
and canonize us in a sonnet room.
__________________
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Last edited by RCL; 09-20-2017 at 04:32 PM.
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