Joined: May 2008 Gender: Female Posts: 552 Karma: 0
The Sonnet « Thread Started on Sept 19, 2008, 8:27am »
About the Sonnet From Wikipedia:
The sonnet is one of the poetic forms that can be found in lyric poetry from Europe. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song." By the thirteenth century, it had come to signify a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. The conventions associated with the sonnet have evolved over its history. The writers of sonnets are sometimes referred to as "sonneteers," although the term can be used derisively. One of the best-known sonnet writers is Shakespeare, who wrote 154 of them. A Shakespearean sonnet consists of 14 lines, each line contains ten syllables, and each line is written in iambic pentameter in which a pattern of a non-emphasized syllable followed by an emphasized syllable is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, in which the last two lines are a rhymed couplet.
Traditionally, when writing sonnets, English poets usually employ iambic pentameter. In the Romance languages, the hendecasyllable and Alexandrine are the most widely used metres.
Modern sonnets
With the advent of free verse, the sonnet came to be seen as somewhat old-fashioned and fell out of use for a time among some schools of poets. However, a number of 20th-century poets, including Wilfred Owen, John Berryman, Edwin Morgan, Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, Joan Brossa, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Seamus Heaney continued to use the form. The advent of the New Formalism movement in the United States has also contributed to contemporary interest in the sonnet. A famous musical reference to sonnets is that of Sting's while in his band, The Police. In the Regatta d'Blanc album, he mentions the instrumental use of a sonnet to convey his love in his song "Does Everyone Stare?". "I tried to write you a sonnet, but I don't know where to start. I'm so used to laughing at the things in my heart. Last of all I', sorry cos you never asked for this I can see i'm not your type and that my shot will always miss."
This workshop is to share information and practice the writing of the sonnet. Hopefully, some sonnet writers among the Wompo community will come forward and show us how it's done!
Joined: May 2008 Gender: Female Posts: 8 Location: New York, NY Karma: 2
Re: The Sonnet « Reply #1 on Nov 2, 2008, 6:23pm »
I love sonnets; the best of them show us the mind in motion, I think. The turn made by the classic sonnet, or "volta," is what fascinates me; the argument is "this" but, ah, also "that"!
It's also an amazingly flexible form which can strike many tones and make many sounds. Look at the wildly different techniques and moods you find from Shakespeare to Donne to Hopkins to Millay to Sexton. And of course if you value economy in poetry--and I do--the sonnet is a gift.
I have a little expo of favorite classic sonnets on my site, "Sonnets Illustrated." Teaching Womponies are welcome to use it as a resource.
Joined: Aug 2008 Gender: Female Posts: 13 Karma: 0
Re: The Sonnet « Reply #2 on Nov 8, 2008, 1:00am »
Kate - thanks for sharing this lovely illustrated collection.... Very beautifully put together.
I love sonnets, too, and love teaching them. One fun connection I've made for my students that really helps them is linking the "turn" or "volta" of a sonnet to the third line of a haiku.... It's a similar kind of twist.
I even think that looking at these "turns" helps students understand something even more generally applicable in poetry - the way a good poem opens us - our perception, our feeling, our understanding - to a new way of seeing.
The old man swore that Lustre Creme Shampoo (that stuff that comes in small blue plastic jars) was perfect for the streaks and stains of rust on my old family sailboat's tiller wheel. A beauty product? Well, why not? Who knew? I didn't hear the snickers of the tars along the wharf. I scrubbed away the crust— was shocked to see the pitting in the steel!
"It tore the finish off my mother's teapot," helpful friends informed me, afterward. "It made our cistern leak and stripped the threads inside the valves." Shampoo is not preferred as cleanser. That is some abrasive we got: how do people use it on their heads?
The rhyme scheme in the octave is unorthodox, abcdabcd instead of abbaabba or ababcdcd. I like this scheme because, although it's just as demanding as the Shakespearean, the rhymes are farther apart and so tend to sneak up on the reader.
Re: The Sonnet « Reply #5 on Nov 30, 2008, 2:09pm »
let me find out if I can post. It's still not quite too late, I hope. I wanted to try some sonnet writing exercises but got tangled up in the posting process. So , yes I learned my very first sonnet lessons at the pen and classroom roundtable of Marilyn Hacker, the Master Mistress of Sonneteering. I also attended a workshop taught by Marilyn's friend , another Marilyn --- Nelson. When Nelson wrote the Home Place she was still Marilyn Nelson Waniek -- with I believe, 2 children from that marriage, and somehow especially in relation to her theme of tracing her own roots -- this seemed important as I read her incredible story of her ancestors. Of course the entire book is written in traditional forms -- oops let me amend that observation. There may be a small handful in carefully structured free verse. There are however sonnets to die for.
Including, let me hasten to add, a healthy selection of these sam poems in Our Annie Finch's A FORMAL FEELING COMES>
One Nelson sonnet in particular begins,
He watch her like a coonhound watch a tree. The line is actually italicized in the poem. It is the first line, and Nelson is describing, in the voice of one of her characters the watching of the beautiful slave, Diverne, by the white son of the white slaveowner who owns Nelson's great grandparents and great aunts. The same watcher who will also become one of Marilyn Nelson's great grandparents. Try starting a sonnet with that line , or in that exact rhythm: He watch her like a coonhound watch a tree.
I wrote several for that Nelson workshop I attended, and Nelson said to me, Your meter is completely off. I suppose my meter is often off. In fact I need to adapt the sonnet form to my own voice, my ancestors my children. They often don't carry on in perfect iambic pentameter. Apparently, neither do I.
Love to you all on this post-stuffing & cranberry sauce day, Patricia Brody Please check out my new Chapbook AMERICAN DESIRE at the FEST SITE Bookstore! Patricia
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