04/26/25 - Day 26 of 30
NaPoWriMo.net Article
NaPoWriMo Prompt
And now for our daily (optional) prompt. The word “sonnet” comes directly from the Italian sonetto, or “little song.” A traditional sonnet has a strict meter and rhyme scheme. It’s a strange form to have wormed its way into English, which is relatively unmetrical and rhyme-poor compared to Romance languages like Italian.
But thanks to William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and others, the sonnet in English bloomed. It also became a sort of rite of passage for poets, with the Victorians especially loving very strict sonnets.
To refresh you on the “rules” of the traditional sonnet:
14 lines
10 syllables per line
Those syllables are divided into five iambic feet. (An iamb is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable). The word “admit” is a good example. In pronouncing it, you put more stress on the “mit” than the “ad.”
Rhyme schemes vary, but the Shakespearean sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg (three quatrains followed by a concluding couplet).
Sonnets are often thought of as not just little songs, but little essays, with the first six-to-eight or so lines building up a problem, the next four-to-six discussing it, and the last two-to-four coming to a conclusion.
Given all these rules, it’s perhaps surprising that love poems make up quite a chunk of sonnets in English, but maybe that’s just because love poems make up quite a chunk of all poems in English?
If you want to intimidate yourself about poetry in general and sonnets in particular, read this quote from Saintsbury’s History of English Prosody.
"To have something to say; to say it under pretty strict limits of form and very strict ones of space; to say it forcibly; to say it beautifully; these are the four great requirements of the poet in general; but they are never set so clearly, so imperatively, so urgently before any variety of poet as before the sonneteer."
And now, by way of illustration, let’s take a look at a few contemporary takes on the sonnet. The first, by Dan Beachy-Quick, is a pretty strict traditional sonnet. The next two –by Terrence Hayes and Alice Notley – are looser. And finally, the last one, by June Jordan, is a rather strict sonnet (rhyme- and meter-wise, though somewhat looser in line-specific syllable count) that doesn’t sound strict at all. It is joyfully informal in its language and tone.
After all this, here’s your prompt! Try your hand at a sonnet – or at least something “sonnet-shaped.” Think about the concept of the sonnet as a song, and let the format of a song inform your attempt. Be as strict or not strict as you want.
My Poem
10 syllables per line
Those syllables are divided into five iambic feet. (An iamb is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable). The word “admit” is a good example. In pronouncing it, you put more stress on the “mit” than the “ad.”
Rhyme schemes vary, but the Shakespearean sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg (three quatrains followed by a concluding couplet).
Sonnets are often thought of as not just little songs, but little essays, with the first six-to-eight or so lines building up a problem, the next four-to-six discussing it, and the last two-to-four coming to a conclusion.
Given all these rules, it’s perhaps surprising that love poems make up quite a chunk of sonnets in English, but maybe that’s just because love poems make up quite a chunk of all poems in English?
If you want to intimidate yourself about poetry in general and sonnets in particular, read this quote from Saintsbury’s History of English Prosody.
"To have something to say; to say it under pretty strict limits of form and very strict ones of space; to say it forcibly; to say it beautifully; these are the four great requirements of the poet in general; but they are never set so clearly, so imperatively, so urgently before any variety of poet as before the sonneteer."
And now, by way of illustration, let’s take a look at a few contemporary takes on the sonnet. The first, by Dan Beachy-Quick, is a pretty strict traditional sonnet. The next two –by Terrence Hayes and Alice Notley – are looser. And finally, the last one, by June Jordan, is a rather strict sonnet (rhyme- and meter-wise, though somewhat looser in line-specific syllable count) that doesn’t sound strict at all. It is joyfully informal in its language and tone.
After all this, here’s your prompt! Try your hand at a sonnet – or at least something “sonnet-shaped.” Think about the concept of the sonnet as a song, and let the format of a song inform your attempt. Be as strict or not strict as you want.
My Poem
Swimming In Lessons
(A Sonnet)
To float perchance to swim without a care
Can’t be a dream of mine without a blind
Inferred allegiance to a calm repair
Of decades long-held thoughts unkind
Thought to be a boy in love-strong arms held,
Too free to fear, too fearless to be foiled.
Unaware of games unfair I was felled
By manly games of topsy-turvy boys.
You would not see how close I came to last
Wide-eyed breaths and last-gasp panic bubbles.
Grown up guffaws shrouded your own pained past
Feigned indifference, you turned from my troubles.
With a lifetime in stasis not facing
My fears, I am now swimming free, racing.
No comments:
Post a Comment