Sonnet is love
sonnet is rhyme'
metaphorical pattern dove
so much sublime....
Popular with poets new
the Elizabethans too
their mistresses so few
used it to woo.....
John Donne, his life
catching the spirit of the Jacobean age
his need to express his love for his wife,
Anne, backstage......
Expression of religious passion
and simply reflections of death
The Victorians fashion
and so many more breath.....
Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
the Rossettis, so blue
and George Meredith were around
were so new.....
American poets noted
Longfellow, expounded
E. A. Robinson, devoted
Elinor Wylie, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, astounded....
Sonnets make us sing
makes us laugh
cry with saving grace brings
universal themes of love mon behalf.....
Keep writing those sonnets
all you wonderful and many more
poets, keep wearing your bonnets
that we all adore...*
Debbie
How to Write a Sonnet
All sonnets have fourteen lines. What makes a sonnet a Shakespearean sonnet is that its fourteen lines rhyme like this:
Line 1 rhymes with line 3
Line 2 rhymes with line 4
Line 3 rhymes with line 1
Line 4 rhymes with line 2
Line 5 rhymes with line 7
Line 6 rhymes with line 8
Line 7 rhymes with line 5
Line 8 rhymes with line 6
Line 9 rhymes with line 11
Line 10 rhymes with line 12
Line 11 rhymes with line 9
Line 12 rhymes with line 10
Line 13 rhymes with line 14
Line 14 rhymes with line 13
Last, most sonnets have a volta, or a turning point. In a Shakespearean sonnet the volta usually begins at line 9.
An easy example of a turning point would be, lines 1-8 ask a question or series of questions and lines 9-14 answer the question or questions.
Our example sonnet would look like this:
he TURNED the FOURteenth GLASS and SAID, “beGIN.”
and I had FOURteen MINutes LEFT to LIVE;
and I had FOURteen UNrePENted SINS,
and FOURteen PEOple WHOM i WOULD forGIVE,
and FOURteen UNread BOOKS uPON my SHELF,
and FOURteen LOVES i KNEW i’d LOVED in VAIN,
and FOURteen DREAMS i’d KEPT withIN mySELF
(the FOURteen I’D most WANted TO exPLAIN.)
but FOURteen MINutes QUICKly PASSED aWAY.
i FILLED my PEN with FOURteen DROPS of INK-
the FOURteenth glass had offered one delay;
and fourteen final grains retained the brink.
this SONnet FLOWED like FOURteen FInal BREATHS-
the FOURteenth LINE, t