{"id":2013,"date":"2007-01-02T22:56:47","date_gmt":"2007-01-02T21:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sunpig.com\/mt-entry-2013.html"},"modified":"2014-01-19T21:54:52","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T20:54:52","slug":"sonnets-why-and-how-long-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/abi\/2007\/01\/02\/sonnets-why-and-how-long-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonnets – Why and How (Long Post)"},"content":{"rendered":"

As noted previously<\/a>, I have been writing rather a lot of sonnets lately. I can name 27 that I’ve written since I started in October, though if I shake my archives out I may find another one or two lurking.<\/p>\n

Why did you start? Why are you doing this?<\/h2>\n

On September 25, 2006, science fiction and fantasy author John “Mike” Ford<\/a> was found dead in his house. Although I didn’t know him personally, he was a frequent commenter on a website that I read. He was particularly prone to extemporaneous sonnets, a trait which amused and amazed us all.<\/p>\n

I used to write sonnets, years ago, but I stopped sometime after university. I certainly wasn’t of a calibre to match John Ford’s work. But when he died, I realised that I would like to become<\/em> good at them, and that the only way to do so was to start writing them.<\/p>\n

I look at it this way: one day, the inspiration and motivation to write the perfect sonnet may strike. But if I haven’t the skills and experience, the thing won’t get written.<\/p>\n

So now I write sonnets. Since they’re for practice, I write them on whatever topics come to mind. I’ve even written one on my organisation’s new system for the recording of project risks. I’ve been described as an “occasional” poet, in the sense that I write for a given occasion rather than writing in the abstract. I often think of my occasional sonnets as “speed sonnets”, because, since I’m writing them for discussions that move on while I compose, I have to write fast. My record is 13 minutes, but most of mine take over half an hour.<\/p>\n

I am doing some non-occasional work, however. I’m sending three narrative sonnets off to a science fiction magazine to see if they’re saleable. Each of them<\/em> is essentially a 14-line short story, and took some 3 or 4 hours to work through.<\/p>\n

So what, in your terms, is a sonnet?<\/h2>\n

Definitions of the sonnet<\/a> vary more than I originally thought. For me, a sonnet has fourteen lines, divided into an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet. The octave, made up of two quatrains, tends to pose a problem or set up a situation, which the sestet then resolves. The sestet generally uses the first four lines to walk thorough the resolution, followed by a two-line couplet that sums the entire situation up.<\/p>\n

(The problem\/solution or situation\/twist division between the octave and the sestet is not something I follow all the time. But it’s a useful way to structure the poem.)<\/p>\n

I use very traditional rhyming patterns, either:<\/p>\n

ababcdcd efefgg, or
\nabbacddc effegg<\/p>\n

I know sonnetrists who use efgefg for their sestets, but I do enjoy finishing a sonnet off in a couplet, so I don’t tend to.<\/p>\n

My favourite sonnet is by Shakespeare, but it’s not one of his stand-alone verses. It’s actually embedded in Romeo and Juliet – the couple’s first words to one another. It ends with a kiss.<\/p>\n

[R]If I profane with my unworthiest hand
\nThis holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
\nMy lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
\nTo smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
\n[J]Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
\nWhich mannerly devotion shows in this;
\nFor saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
\nAnd palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
\n[R]Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
\n[J]Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
\n[R]O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
\nThey pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
\n[J]Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
\n[R]Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.<\/p>\n

How hard is the rhyming?<\/h2>\n

Not as difficult as one would think. The important thing is not to sound surprised when you find yourself at the end of the second line in a rhymed pair, suddenly reaching for some bizarre word to match your sounds up. (This can be funny, used correctly, but after a while it just sounds amateurish). This means planning ahead, and having some idea of the areas you’re going to cover. It also means having some alternative phrasings up your sleeve, if you simply can’t wind up at the right sound at the right time.<\/p>\n

The important thing is that it has to sound natural<\/em>. The writer must be the master of the language. A reader that senses that the language is pushing the writer around, dictating the content of the poem will lose trust in the narrative voice.<\/p>\n

I’m averse to false rhymes and near rhymes, but I do cheat a bit on accents. There are words that rhyme neatly in one of my dialects, or in extreme cases, my idiolect, and I’ll happily pair them up. Like the following sonnet, which manages to rhyme “on” and “shone” (I sometimes pronounce it to rhyme with “Shawn”).<\/p>\n

The day the Scotland processor came on,
\nThe land itself was darkened from the drain
\nTill, windmills spinning, taking up the strain,
\nThe nation-chip began. Control lights shone.
\nThe code we’d woven deep into the land
\nThe bits and bytes in heather, pine and stone,
\nIn cities, towns and crofts, then spread, unknown,
\nDelivering the Web into our hand.
\nAt Mercat Cross they read the proclamation:
\nWe hold the world. It’s time to take control.
\nWe argued then, for Scotland isn’t whole.
\nWhit? Rule the world? We cannae run the nation!
\nThe wisest knew the row would never halt,
\nAnd sitting back, enjoyed their single malt.<\/p>\n

(Context note: this came out of a conversation about how Scotland could take over the world, combined with my memory of a line from a James Crawford poem about Scotland as a “boundless chip of a nation”. I’m rather fond of it, though it’s one of the ones where I used feminine endings – see below – on the ninth and twelfth lines.)<\/p>\n

What about meter?<\/h2>\n

I write almost exclusively in iambic pentameter<\/a> (the link is a very good article, but if you want to skip it, just remember that an iamb goes daDUM and that pentameter means you use five of them in a line). I’m very fussy about this. I’ll occasionally use a “feminine” ending, with an additional unstressed syllable at the end of a line, but only in rhymed pairs.<\/p>\n

Most good sonnet writers are less timid about varying their meter, cheerfully swapping spondees<\/strike> trochees (DAdum) for iambs and using unmatched feminine endings. But, just as I used to train with a men’s shot put to make it easier when I competed with the lighter women’s one, I’m taking a strict approach to meter just now. The meter is the engine that moves a sonnet; its pace walks the reader through the meaning. Too loose an approach to meter leaves the reader stumbling, rushing here and lost there.<\/p>\n

A few small rules, while talking meter:<\/p>\n