We looked at the different sonnet structures last week, and we discussed how the structure influences the content and how we read the poem. For this week's blog, please go to either the Poetry foundation, Poetry Out Loud, or The Academy of American Poets and read through several different sonnets. Once you find one that you like, put the sonnet in your post. Then, explain to us the following information:
- What is the sonnet structure? Type of sonnet.
- What is the sonnet about?
- Why did you pick this sonnet?
Do not look up an analysis of the sonnet. You need to be able to figure this out on your own.
Love Song for Love Songs
ReplyDeleteRafael Campo, 1964
A golden age of love songs and we still
can’t get it right. Does your kiss really taste
like butter cream? To me, the moon’s bright face
was neither like a pizza pie nor full;
the Beguine began, but my eyelid twitched.
“No more I love you’s," someone else assured
us, pouring out her heart, in love (of course)—
what bothers me the most is that high-pitched,
undone whine of “Why am I so alone?”
Such rueful misery is closer to
the truth, but once you turn the lamp down low,
you must admit that he is still the one,
and baby, baby he makes you so dumb
you sing in the shower at the top of your lungs.
This sonnet has an ABBCDEFD, rhyme scheme, and it is not very common or flowing. The meter is the same throughout the piece, with 10 beats every line. Like a normal sonnet, it consists of 14 lines and a couplet at the end. Campo was trying to portray what love really is, and that this generation today, does not understand what love truly means and feels like. I chose this poem because although I may not know what love truly feels like, I agree with Campo that love is misunderstood today. Love is not about one specific thing or a specific emotion because love comes with many different emotions. Campo is trying to make a point that love is within the two who feel the love, and no one else can change that.
Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
ReplyDeleteRepair me now, for now mine end doth haste,
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feebled flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only thou art above, and when towards thee
By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour I can myself sustain;
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.
This sonnet by John Doone contains the fourteen lines needed for a sonnet, but does not follow the rhyme scheme of either the octave and sestet. The problem is presented in octave and the solution follows in the sestet, as defined. It is a Petrarchan sonnet. Doone’s themes of love and death are intertwined. The speaker faces a break up between a love interest and himself, blaming her for a destruction of his faith and trust. In doing this, his pleasures and all connections mean nothing, and therefore rushes to face death. The death of the relations between them, though, strengthens his morale. After she comes back, in temptation, he refuses to change his decision and holds on to his iron heart.
I chose this sonnet not only because it was the first one I saw, but also it had a unique perspective. Having death as a third person and a narrator voice allows the speaker’s emotions to be captured.
Snowflake by William Baer
ReplyDeleteTiming’s everything. The vapor rises
high in the sky, tossing to and fro,
then freezes, suddenly, and crystalizes
into a perfect flake of miraculous snow.
For countless miles, drifting east above
the world, whirling about in a swirling free-
for-all, appearing aimless, just like love,
but sensing, seeking out, its destiny.
Falling to where the two young skaters stand,
hand in hand, then flips and dips and whips
itself about to ever-so-gently land,
a miracle, across her unkissed lips:
as he blocks the wind raging from the south,
leaning forward to kiss her lovely mouth.
This is a Shakespearian Sonnet, with 14 lines, and an ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme. The theme of this poem is love, which is the most common theme addressed by sonnets. Just like a typically Shakespearian sonnet, this poem is broken up into three quatrains and a couplet. Each quatrain focuses on a different aspect of love which the ending couplet provides commentary on. The first quatrain acts as the intro, comparing the formation of a snowflake to the formation of love. Just as a snowflake requires perfect timing to form, so does love; it only forms in certain conditions. Yet, when love does form, time seems to stop for the lovers, as the formation that they have witnessed is arguably one of the most miraculous experiences they have had. The second quatrain focuses more on how love is actually found, and how people seem to drift aimlessly in search of it. It is then in the third quatrain when the focus is the actual discovery of love, and an actual love story is developed. Similar to a snowflake, love finally "falls" upon two people after its long journey. A young couple fall in love on a date, skating during the snowfall, and the enjoyment of their newfound love is expressed through the imagery of the "flips and dips and whips" of the snowflake moving along with the couple (line10). The couplet at the end closes the story with the lovers sharing a kiss, as their love is described as a miracle. Ultimately, what Baer is attempting to convey in this poem is the wondrous miracle of love; his depicts its long journey that finally ends in a beautiful scene of happiness once its presence is realized. I picked this sonnet because I am something of a hopeless romantic, I believe that love is intertwined with destiny, and I envision it as this amazing thing that is so delicate and miraculously beautiful, like a snowflake. Like a snowflake, no love is the same, yet each love still holds that intricate beauty that people treasure. That is why I chose this sonnet, because it managed to take my feelings about love and use imagery and metaphors to convey love's beauty in poetic form.
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ReplyDeleteSonnet 10: I have sought Happiness, but it has been
ReplyDeleteBY ALAN SEEGER
I have sought Happiness, but it has been
A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit,
And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit
More fair of outward hue than sweet within.
Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment
Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil,
There only, chastened by fatigue and toil,
I knew what came the nearest to content.
For there at least my troubled flesh was free
From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so;
Discord and Strife were what I used to know,
Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy;
By War transported far from all of these,
Amid the clash of arms I was at peace.
This sonnet among having 14 lines has a rhyme scheme of ABBACDDCEFFEGG and obviously the sonnet is all one stanza with ten syllables a line. This sonnet is about how the speaker has been worn down by life and needs an escape. The author starts off by saying that they have sought happiness but it has all been baffling because his pursuit has proved fruitless. Happiness has continued to elude the speaker and the speaker continues to go on, on how he/she has been worn down by the fatigue, and toil of life through heartbreak, deception, and jealousy. The author then ends the sonnet by making the statement that being away at war has actually put him/her at peace because it has taken him/her away from the pain of his/her life. This was around the fourth or fifth sonnet that I read but I chose this one because it was different then all the ones I read before this. Most sonnets can be argued to have overall messages of love, and heartbreak and that theme is relatively non-existent in this sonnet. It is expressed once and is one of the minor themes but it is not the prevalent meaning of this sonnet. I thought this sonnet was interesting because it pointed out a different point of view of how going to war could put a person at peace instead of complicate a person's life.
To Fanny
ReplyDeleteJohn Keats
I cry your mercy–pity–love!–aye, love!
Merciful love that tantalizes not,
One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmasked, and being seen–without a blot!
O! let me have thee whole,–all–all–be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss,–those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,–
Yourself–your soul–in pity give me all.
Withhold no atom’s atom or I die,
Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Life’s purposes,–the palate of my mind
Losing its gist, and my ambition blind!
This is a shakespearean sonnet. It is about love, and the spectrum of emotion that it carries the speaker across. The title of the poem “To Fanny”, allows the speaker to leave the woman unnamed and refer to her as love, explain how love affects them. I picked this sonnet because it was the first I found, and because Allen Ginsberg’s poem was too difficult to analyze.
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ReplyDeleteIf I were fire, I’d burn the world away
ReplyDelete"S'i' fosse foco”
By Cecco Angiolieri (translated by Paul Violi)
If I were fire, I'd burn the world away;
If I were wind, I'd blow it down;
If I were water, I'd let it drown;
If I were God, I'd deep-six it today.
If I were Pope, what would make me gay?
To ransack every Christian town.
If I were emperor, what would make my day?
To see heads roll on the ground!
If I were death, I'd run down my father;
If I were life, I'd flee from him.
As for dear mama, she gets the same.
If I were Cecco, and that is my name,
I'd take the pretty young girls to screw
and leave the ugly old hags to you.
With its ABBA ABAB CDEEFF, this sonnet does not fit exactly in a set rhyme pattern for a Petrarchan, Shakespearean, or Spenserian sonnet. However, the arrangement of the lines and stanzas is that of a Petrarchan sonnet, since it has an Octave and Sestet. The reason for the rhyme scheme being slightly off could be that the poem was originally written in Italien then translated into English.
This sonnet is about the poet’s desire to watch the world burn. He is unhappy with humanity and would rather see it destroyed than try to fix it. All but the last two lines focus on the poet’s dictates for life and his misanthropy, but the last to lines speak to his enjoyment of life and its earthly pleasures. The Poet starts of lines with conditions that aren’t necessarily true, save for the line in which he states his name. This poem is more of a satire than a real wish to destroy the world, but the poet is most likely not happy with the way the world is, save maybe his luck with the ladies.
I picked this sonnet because I thought it was funny. In my experience with poetry, the majority are about love and emotions and things like that and I find it tiring. I liked reading this because it was refreshing and interesting to think that even centuries ago, people were making sexual innuendos and complaining about the state of the Earth. Although I wish I could read and appreciate the poem in its original Italien form, I enjoyed Violi’s translation and choice of words, and his attempt to keep the rhyme scheme in place. I think I picked this poem because I didn’t want to analyze something about a pretty girl or how sad someone was, I wanted to listen to some Italien guy’s desire to raze the world. Angiolieri also tastefully described what he would enjoy doing and the tone of sarcastic humor underlying the sonnet was interesting and something I didn’t find in many other sonnets.
Ever
ReplyDeleteMeghan O’Rourke
Never, never, never, never, never.
—King Lear
Even now I can’t grasp “nothing” or “never.”
They’re unholdable, unglobable, no map to nothing.
Never? Never ever again to see you?
An error, I aver. You’re never nothing,
because nothing’s not a thing.
I know death is absolute, forever,
the guillotine—gutting—never to which we never say goodbye.
But even as I think “forever” it goes “ever”
and “ever” and “ever.” Ever after.
I’m a thing that keeps on thinking. So I never see you
is not a thing or think my mouth can ever. Aver:
You’re not “nothing.” But neither are you something.
Will I ever really get never?
You’re gone. Nothing, never—ever.
This Poem has an ABCBBADAECABAA rhyme scheme, which does not follow the pattern for the Shakespearean, Petrarchan, or Spenserian sonnets. However, I would say that this closely follows the structure of a Spenserian sonnet because of the use of the word “But” in line 8, indicating a volta, but actually changing the tone for the couplet at the end. The poem also follows the 14 line structure common of sonnets and is written in iambic pentameter.
This sonnet is introduced by a quote from King Lear, “Never, never, never, never, never,” which is spoken by King Lear after he finds out about the death of his daughter. This leads to the conclusion that the poem is about a speaker who refuses to accept a loss in their life, whether the loss is death or the end of a relationship. The speaker plays on the word never until it has no meaning, further pushing themself into denial over what has happened. The use of the term “Ever After” alludes to fairytales, and the hope of a perfect relationship with a happy ending. However, by the end of the poem the speaker is asking if they will ever know anything for sure in their live, and they accept that the person in their life is gone.
I chose this sonnet because it is modern, written in 2015, and I wanted to see an example of a sonnet written today. I also chose this sonnet because of the line from King Lear, and I enjoy Shakespeare and that play. Also, I enjoyed the honesty in the poem, the way it seems real because it is about a person who refuses to accept things in their own lives. It reminded me of the song “Light a Roman Candle with Me” by Fun. which has one of my favorite lines, “If we were honest and both wrote a sonnet, together a sandwich with everything on it.”
Sonnet 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
ReplyDeleteWilliam Shakespeare
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Because this sonnet has a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG and is about love, and is written by Shakespeare, it is a Shakespearean sonnet. This sonnet differs from the sonnets we discussed in class as it discusses a mistress, implying that the speaker is telling about the object of his lust rather than his love. The sonnet follows the structure of three quatrains, ending with a rhyming couplet. The first quatrain is the introduction that begins the comparison of the speaker’s mistress to nature. The second quatrain furthers this comparison of typical standards of beauty such as a rose and perfume, neither of which can be used to describe this woman. The third quatrain brings the speaker into the lens of the sonnet with the woman; the speaker accepts and wants her despite knowing that there are more pleasing things out there. The rhyming couplet serves as the climax of the sonnet, where the speaker realizes that despite this woman not meeting the speaker’s expectations of beauty, he still believes that she is rare and unique. I picked this sonnet because it contrasts with sonnets such as “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” where love is beautiful and compared to the sun. Here, love is compared to the sun as well, and the lesson comes in knowing that it is “nothing like the sun” but is worth having nonetheless.
Shakespeare - "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?"
ReplyDeleteShall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The sonnet “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” is known to be one of Shakespeare’s most famous love poems of his time. It exactly follows the Shakespearean or English sonnet format. This poem has 14 lines with 3 quatrains and a couplet. Each line consists of 10 syllables. The rhyme scheme of the quatrains is abab cdcd efef. The couplet has the rhyme scheme gg. The narrator relates love to the seasons. They begin by stating the reasons why summer is not a perfect season. The wind blows buds off the trees and the season is too short and hot. The narrator proceeds to praise the beauty of his/her lover with comparisons to natural beauty. They possess the gift of eternal love and beauty. Unlike death, his/her beauty will never fade. The sonnet quickly transfers to a metaphor about understanding poetry. As long as people continue to reach out through literature, the beauty and understanding of poetry and written work will never fade away. I chose this sonnet because I enjoyed the flow of the piece while initially reading it. Of the sonnets we have previously analyzed, the Shakespearean set-up and rhyme scheme is most pleasing to me personally. I also loved the hidden metaphors within this particular sonnet. The message Shakespeare seeks to convey relates love and literature in perfect harmony.
The Dead by Jones Very
ReplyDeleteI SEE them,- crowd on crowd they walk the earth
Dry, leafless trees no Autumn wind laid bare;
And in their nakedness find cause for mirth,
And all unclad would winter's rudeness dare;
No sap doth through their clattering branches flow,
Whence springing leaves and blossoms bright appear;
Their hearts the living God have ceased to know,
Who gives the springtime to th'expectant year;
They mimic life, as if from him to steal
His glow of health to paint the livid cheek;
They borrow words for thoughts they cannot feel,
That with a seeming heart their tongue may speak;
And in their show of life more dead they live
Than those that to the earth with many tears they give.
This sonnet by Jones Very is an English/Shakespearean Sonnet. It follows an ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme as an English sonnet, having three quatrains and an ending couplet with the GG rhyme. I chose this poem because I was on the Poetry Out Loud website and I saw a sonnet by Jones Very listed among the other sonnets. Upon seeing the name Jones Very I was reminded of a poem I had read before by this same author. I was delighted when I found it in one of my books and saw that it qualifies as a sonnet- something I had not noticed whenever I read it before. This sonnet, The Dead is about dead trees that remain after autumn. They are bare, having lost their leaves and are everywhere: their bare and rattling branches crowd the streets. These trees are like people who attempt to appear alive, they ‘“borrow words for thoughts they cannot feel” and only achieve exemplifying how dead they really are.
Never give all the Heart
ReplyDeleteBY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that’s lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.
Follows an AABBCCDDEEFFGG pattern, making it a spenserian sonnet. It is also known as a couplet sonnet. This sonnet is about being hurt by someone the writer thought he would be with forever. The feeling is that if they hadn’t given so much of themselves to this person, then they would not have been so hurt when that person wasn’t in their life. When you are in love with someone, they take precedent over your life. No longer can you do everything else to the best of your ability because you are always thinking about this other person. When the person is gone, it feels as if your whole life changed, not just what you did together, to think of that love hurts when it used to be something happy you thought about. I picked this poem because it gave a good perspective of what it is like to lose someone important to you. All I can really say is that it just really stood out to me. I’m not really sure why.
Sonnet [If I were fire, I’d burn the world away]
ReplyDeleteBy: Paul Violi
Angiolieri's "S'i' fosse foco"
If I were fire, I’d burn the world away;
If I were wind, I’d blow it down;
If I were water, I’d let it drown;
If I were God, I’d deep-six it today.
If I were Pope, what would make me gay?
To ransack every Christian town.
If I were emperor, what would make my day?
To see heads roll on the ground!
If I were death, I’d run down my father;
If I were life, I’d flee from him.
As for dear mama, she gets the same.
And if I were Cecco, and that is my name,
I’d take the pretty young girls to screw
and leave the ugly old hags to you.
Translated by Paul Violi, Cecco Angiolieri’s sonnet Italian sonnet “S’i Fosso Foco” has the typical 14 lines but is not in iambic pentameter and has a unique rhyme scheme of ABBA ABAB CDEEFF. The unique sonnet structure is most likely due to the fact that the poem was originally written in Italian. Angiolieri, was an Italian poet that lived 1260-1312, which is much earlier than when Petrach, Shakespeare, and Spenser were writing sonnets. Therefore, it is hard to classify exactly which type of sonnet “S’i Fosso Foco” is. However, because of the three quatrains followed by a couplet and the intertwined rhyme scheme, I would classify this poem to be similar to the Spenserian sonnet or the Shakespearean sonnet. Though sonnets usually have a theme of love, this one has a theme of power and destruction. The second quatrain is my personal favorite because Angiolieri uses leadership figures, such as the Pope and an emperor, to show how these figures have the ability to abuse their power: “If I were emperor, what would make my day?/ To see heads roll on the ground!” I picked this sonnet to share because of its uniqueness from the typical sonnet structure as well as Angiolieri’s dark and witty tone.
Poem in the American Manner
ReplyDeleteBY DOROTHY PARKER
I dunno yer highfalutin' words, but here's th' way it seems
When I'm peekin' out th' winder o' my little House o Dreams;
I've been lookin' 'roun' this big ol' world, as bizzy as a hive,
An' I want t' tell ye, neighbor mine, it's good t' be alive.
I've ben settin' here, a-thinkin' hard, an' say, it seems t' me
That this big ol' world is jest about as good as it kin be,
With its starvin' little babies, an' its battles, an' its strikes,
An' its profiteers, an' hold-up men—th' dawggone little tykes!
An' its hungry men that fought fer us, that nobody employs.
An' I think, "Why, shucks, we're jest a lot o' grown-up little boys!"
An' I settle back, an' light my pipe, an' reach fer Mother's hand,
An' I wouldn't swap my peace o' mind fer nothin' in the land;
Fer this world uv ours, that jest was made fer folks like me an' you
Is a purty good ol' place t' live—say, neighbor, ain't it true?
This sonnet is written in the aabbccdd rhyme scheme, which allows the sonnet to flow freely. This adds to the carefree tone employed by the speaker. The sonnet itself is traditional in the sense that it includes fourteen lines followed by a couplet. The sonnet carries a message of hope and optimism; the world is not as bad as it seems. The speaker is trying to convince his neighbor that life is good, despite the fact that the world is not perfect. The author's diction and the sonnets overall theme reminds me of the poems we read in Kettle Bottom.
HAP (Thomas Hardy, ca. 1897)
ReplyDeleteIf but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
that thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”
Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.
But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
--Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . .
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
Hardy’s sonnet “Hap” follows most closely the structure of a Shakespearean or English sonnet; the three quatrains, each with individual ideas, comment on the overarching theme, and a concluding couplet provides resolution. In addition, the rhyme scheme is nearly exactly congruous with that of this type of sonnet (although the last two lines deviate from the traditional format).
This sonnet is a commentary on the author’s perspective on a higher power, and how its existence (or lack thereof) affects his perception and interpretation of the good and bad things in his life. As the first quatrain expresses, the author feels as though great travesty and tumult plague him, and that his heart is heavy; he proposes first that if he knew there were a malevolent god wishing terrors upon him, he would feel better, and in the second quatrain he expresses that he would be at peace with the fact that his troubles were not without an intended purpose. However, in the third quatrain he concedes that he believes this is not so. Because the author believes that there is no higher power, all of his trials and tribulations are for naught - there is no “Powerfuller” being overseeing neither what he does nor what is done to him, and for this all hope and faith in a better future is diminished. His life, he concludes, is mere circumstance, and whether good or bad things happen, it is not important to anyone and a god cares not. The misery he feels is genuine, raw, and true, without any depth.
I chose this poem because, more often than not, it is easy to slip into feeling this way. With life presenting so many trials and tribulations, as Hardy expresses, disappointment not only in things that happen in life but also with things that people in life do is prevalent. Feeling angry - with others, with yourself, with circumstance, and potentially even with God - is hard to suppress when you feel hurt or as if no one on Earth or otherwise is looking out for your well-being. Trust in others and in God can be a challenge, especially for me at this point in my life. I also adore Thomas Hardy - I’ve read lots of his works, and have others on my list, and I know about him that his belief in God was not steadfast. However, even when I reach these low points in my life, I am often reminded that despite feeling abandoned and as though no one cares, Hardy was wrong, and someone always unexpected reminds me that “hap” is not reality. As my good friend randomly texted me today, in a time of need and feeling extraordinarily low, “Psalm 9:9-10.” The verse reads, “The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.” I chose this sonnet because half of the time, my heart wants to agree with Hardy’s message and concede to what I feel. Yet, as I move forward, whether someone seeks me or I seek Him, whenever I feel lost, I am found again.
Golden Retrievals By Mark Doty
ReplyDeleteFetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention a
seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so. b
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s—oh b
joy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then a
I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue c
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you? c
Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk, d
thinking of what you never can bring back, d
or else you’re off in some fog concerning e
—tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work: f
to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving, e
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark, f
a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here, g
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow h
The sonnet’s structure resembles a Shakespearean sonnet more so than a Petrarchan because I do not feel a division or shift in feeling after the first octave. Instead, it is presented in three quatrains ending in a couplet. It does not follow the traditional rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean, but it doesn’t follow that of a Petrarchan either. This sonnet is about what goes through a dog’s mind, which is often pursued and normally portrayed playfully. This sonnet differs a little bit because the attitude of the speaker (dog) is not wholly carefree or excitable, but thoughtful. The dog is wise about the human’s emotions and the role he must play in his human’s life for the man’s sake. It is a comment on the fast pace of society that will inevitably suck us in in our adulthood, and also the consistency of the dog who will regulate us in their role of best friend. I chose this sonnet from Poetry Out Loud because I am next to my dogs (no retrievers) and like to think our loving relationship is more than food-driven. I believe it is :)
What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be Friends
ReplyDeleteBY JULIAN TALAMANTEZ BROLASKI
Why speak of hate, when I do bleed for love?
Not hate, my love, but Love doth bite my tongue
Till I taste stuff that makes my rhyming rough
So flatter I my fever for the one
For whom I inly mourn, though seem to shun.
A rose is arrows is eros, so what
If I confuse the shade that I’ve become
With winedark substance in a lover’s cup?
But stop my tonguely wound, I’ve bled enough.
If I be fair, or false, or freaked with fear
If I my tongue in lockèd box immure
Blame not me, for I am sick with love.
Yet would I be your friend most willingly
Since friendship would infect me killingly.
I chose this poem because I was familiar with Brolaski’s work and his experimental writing that often explores issues only in the transgender community, but this poem was far from any social commentary, which I enjoyed. It was a tried and true sonnet and I enjoy sonnets about love, especially when that love is unrequited. It feels natural. Almost like the structure was created entirely to show those emotions. However, they do get pretty boring reading so many with the same shared strife over another lost or skinny love, so it was nice that this sonnet is not in shakespearean form, Spenserian, or Petrarchan, but does conclude in a couplet. The rhyme scheme of the fourteen line poem is: AB CBBDEFCGHA II . This strange scheme is mostly likely due to it being written so recently to add stylistic impact. Also lovely metaphors such as, “a rose is arrows” and an allusion to Eros, the god of love add to the grief over one's past love.
An Equation For My Children
ReplyDeleteWilmer Mills
It may be esoteric and perverse
That I consult Pythagoras to hear
A music tuning in the universe.
My interest in his math of star and sphere
Has triggered theorems too far-fetched to solve.
They don’t add up. But if I rack and toil
More in ether than a mortal coil,
It is to comprehend how you revolve,
By formulas of orbit, ellipse, and ring.
Dear son and daughter, if I seem to range
It is to chart the numbers spiraling
Between my life and yours until the strange
And seamless beauty of equations click
Solutions for the heart’s arithmetic.
This sonnet follows an ABABCDDCEFEFGG rhyme scheme. For the most part, this poem has a Shakespearean sonnet structure. However, the second group of four lines runs CDDC, which resembles the pattern found in Petrarchan sonnets.
This poem seems to be about the speaker’s quest for knowledge through scientific methods, as evidenced by the numerous allusions he makes to scientific concepts. Pythagoras is known for discovering tuning and harmonic ratios, and identifying which were most aesthetically pleasing (as a sidenote, he was also afraid of beans). Orbit, ellipse, and ring are all references to astronomy.
The poem also demonstrates a certain level of ignorance on the speaker’s part; he says he may “toil...in ether”. The basic rundown on ether is that a long time ago, people knew light could travel from place to place – obviously, the light from the Sun was reaching Earth. They also thought that light needed a medium through which to propagate, and reasoned that space must be made of something if light could travel through it. So they called this stuff “aether” (ether).
So this part of the poem does reference a real scientific concept.
The only problem is, the existence of ether was disproven more than 100 years before this poem was written in 2003.
THAT'S RIGHT FELLAS, in 1887, ether was found NOT TO EXIST in the Michelson-Morley experiment! Incidentally the MMX was conducted at what is now Case Western. This experiment split a beam of light, sending the resultant beams in perpendicular paths, then compared the phase shifts in each beam. The phase changes were inconsistent with what would be expected if the Earth were moving through ether, thus disproving its existence.
The reference to toiling at ether, despite its existence having been disproved, might hint that the speaker is old and stuck in his ways. If this is the case, one may interpret the poem as a plea that the speaker’s children discover all the laws that this dude’s old and feeble mind can’t grasp. Though why he happens to be writing this at over 106 years old is beyond anyone’s guess.
I picked this sonnet because I know what it’s saying. Tachyon out.
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all
ReplyDeleteBY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call—
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.
This shakespearean sonnet is about the aftermath of love. The speaker expresses his emotion about how he feels when felt betrayed and chose the greater outcome which was being the bigger person rather than being hateful. I chose this sonnet because it's one of the first came across. You can't go wrong with Shakespeare.
Strange, by John Frederick Nims
ReplyDeleteI’d have you known! It puzzles me forever A
To hear, day in, day out, the words men use, B
But never a single word about you, never. A
Strange!—in your every gesture, worlds of news. B -Octave
On busses people talk. On curbs I hear them; C
In parks I listen, barbershop and bar. D
In banks they murmur, and I sidle near them; C
But none allude to you there. None so far. D
I read books too, and turn the pages, spying: E
You must be there, one beautiful as you! F
But never, not by name. No planes are flying E -Sestet
Your name in lacy trailers past the blue F
Marquees of heaven. No trumpets cry your fame. G
Strange!—how no constellations spell your name! G
This “Shakespearean”, or “English” Sonnet, is written in ABABCDCDEFEFGG format which translates to one Octave and a Sestet. The sonnet contains a male speaker attempting to flatter a female speaker, like most sonnets. He does this by marvelling over her lake of fame and celebrity status. By being astonished by her lack of fame he implies that she deserves fame and recognition for her qualities and attributes. This is done hyperbolically in order to emphasize the narrator's feeling of astonishment and absurdity in relation to others feelings about his prospective or current partner. I chose this poem because, after roughly 20 minutes of browsing through sonnets, I was irritated and the title captured my attention.
Snowflake
ReplyDeleteBY WILLIAM BAER
Timing’s everything. The vapor rises
high in the sky, tossing to and fro,
then freezes, suddenly, and crystallizes
into a perfect flake of miraculous snow.
For countless miles, drifting east above
the world, whirling about in a swirling free-
for-all, appearing aimless, just like love,
but sensing, seeking out, its destiny.
Falling to where the two young skaters stand,
hand in hand, then flips and dips and whips
itself about to ever-so-gently land,
a miracle, across her unkissed lips:
as he blocks the wind raging from the south,
leaning forward to kiss her lovely mouth.
This poem by William Baer would most likely be considered a Shakespearean Sonnet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg and contains 14 lines. The theme of the poem is, like most sonnets, love. In the poem Baer is comparing love to a snowflake. He does so by stating “whirling about in a swirling free-for-all, appearing aimless”, in this the poet is stating that love carries this feeling of carelessness and that nothing else really matters except for the love a person is feeling. But is the next sentence the poet states, “But sensing, seeking out, its destiny”, which by saying this the poet alludes to the fact that love has a destiny, whether it ends badly or if it ends with a happily-ever-after. By using words such as “Miraculous” Baer is showing how beautiful and unique love is. This is all concluded with the scene of the lovers to amplify the Baer’s theme of love. The opening of the poem holds meaning in that only under specific conditions will love grow. It will not become something if the timing or situation is not correct. Baer in his sonnet, Snowflake, shows the unique, carefree beauty of love and the process of falling in love by comparing love to the formation of a snowflake and its descent down towards its destiny.
I chose this sonnet because out of a group of about 6 sonnets that caught my eye this was the poem that stuck out to me. I thought that it had the best formatting as well the fact that I enjoyed the extended metaphor and thought that the comparison of snow and love was quite thorough and well thought out.
The Oven Bird
ReplyDeleteBy Robert Frost
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
This sonnet does not follow a Shakespearean, Petrarchan, or Spenserian form. It has a rhyme scheme of AABCBDCDEEFGFG, making it a little out of the ordinary.
This sonnet is about the changing of seasons; spring makes way for summer which makes way for the fall, then when the leaves of the cherry blossom start fall, this is when autumn is replaced by winter. This changing of seasons represents the passage of time and the change it brings about. The different seasons can be representative of the different seasons of our lives. Spring represents youthfulness and growing because of the budding flowers, summer represents adulthood because of the trees being full of life and leaves, autumn represents older age because of the falling leaves, and winter represents decrepitness and death because of the death of the flowers and trees under the snow. The most interesting part of this sonnet is the last four lines where the bird realizes that he has not much time left and is trying to figure out how to really get something out of his life.
I picked this poem because I like the theme. The theme would be that time passes quickly and unrelentlessly just as the seasons do, so we ought to make the most of the time we have lest we be stuck in the winter of our lives wondering why we wasted so much of it. I truly do fear being in a place in my future where I feel stuck in a career or type of life that I regret and am not happy with. I don’t want to ever feel as though I am stuck in what I’m doing or feel as though my life has no value. I think we all can agree that having a diminished sense of life would be a very sad thing to realize, and that is why the theme of this poem is so important. Time is a valuable currency that should be spent wisely, not wasted.
Snowflake-by William Baer
ReplyDeleteTiming’s everything. The vapor rises
high in the sky, tossing to and fro,
then freezes, suddenly, and crystalizes
into a perfect flake of miraculous snow.
For countless miles, drifting east above
the world, whirling about in a swirling free-
for-all, appearing aimless, just like love,
but sensing, seeking out, its destiny.
Falling to where the two young skaters stand,
hand in hand, then flips and dips and whips
itself about to ever-so-gently land,
a miracle, across her unkissed lips:
as he blocks the wind raging from the south,
leaning forward to kiss her lovely mouth.
I chose to read this Shakesperean sonnet because of its title, Snowflake and my desire to see some snow fall this holiday season. This poem describes a snowflake forming and then falling on two lovers whose relationship is forming. According to Foster, a Shakesperean sonnet tends to be broken into four groups of four lines, each quatrain having unity. The first four lines of this poem explain the science behind a snowflake being formed. The second four lines describe this snowflake flying through the wind to find the perfect place to land. The following third four lines describe two young lovers in which the snowflake has landed on. Each of these quatrains can stand with their own meanings, but once viewed closer, they are all describing finding love. Much like love, a snowflake must be formed at the exact right time with the right components. Once a snowflake has formed, it drifts and flies until finding the perfect spot to land, as two lovers get to know each other until their love has developed. In the last two lines of the poem, the snowflake is symbolized through through a boy leaning in to kiss his girlfriend for the first time. This loss of innocence is cleansed by the democratic aspect of snow, making for a beautiful theme and meaning behind this poem.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
ReplyDeleteBy William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Since this poem was written by William Shakespeare and has the typical rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg it is a Shakespearian sonnet. This piece in particular has the theme shared by most sonnets, which is love. Shakespeare addresses his love and compares her to many things that he finds lovely and pleasing to the eye. He essentially uses things not always associated with love, like the seasons and breathing to relate to how he loves his significant other. I chose this poem in all honestly because it's the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of sonnets. It's pretty much the poster child of sonnets. I also chose this piece because I enjoy the fluidity of it and how it reads. Poetry is not something I throughly enjoy, but I can appreciate the classics.
Harlem Hopscotch by Maya Angelou:
ReplyDeleteOne foot down, then hop! It's hot.
Good things for the ones that's got.
Another jump, now to the left.
Everybody for hisself.
In the air, now both feet down.
Since you black, don't stick around.
Food is gone, the rent is due,
Curse and cry and then jump two.
All the people out of work,
Hold for three, then twist and jerk.
Cross the line, they count you out.
That's what hopping's all about.
Both feet flat, the game is done.
They think I lost. I think I won.
This sonnet has a rhyme structure that has a pair of end rhymes in a structure of "aabb ccdd eeff gg." This pattern is akin to Shakespearian sonnets. The sonnet comes off as a kid's nursery rhyme, but entails a deeper social commentary. With the setting of Harlem in mind, the poem is an example of the cultural revolution African Americans experienced at the time of the 1960's, especially in Harlem. This poem voices the harsh realities of blacks in the city, implying that they are secluded with "everybody for hisself" and that they are suppressed further with "food is gone, the rent is due." In between the commentary are hopscotch commands like "jump two." The sonnet is told as if it were a child reciting this, not only for the sake of the game, but also because of a realization of their reality. They go through adversity yet keep pushing through the ups and downs. The last line represents how the normal person could see this cycle as a failure and that they have no chance to escape it. The poet disagrees and sees herself as won the game of hopscotch: that her efforts in real life will be worth it and show accomplishment.
I chose this poem because of the metaphor used to compare hopscotch to plight of African Americans during the civil right movements. Everything seems to fall perfectly in poetic place: the alliteration of the title, the stark contrast of a children's game and reality, and the fact that it flows well as a sonnet without being lost in translation. The poem then uses its well placed poetry to convey the problem it was trying to get at, but also add a sprinkle of hope.
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ReplyDeleteOzymandias
ReplyDeleteWritten by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
This sonnet follows the peculiar rhyme scheme of ABABCDEDFEGHGH. Unlike Petrarchan, shakespearean, and even Spenserian sonnets Shelley’s Ozymandias uses a rhyme scheme devoid in all of them. Only the fourteen lines coupled with the one stanza size of the piece allows for any basic evidence that it is a sonnet at all. Ozymandias focuses on the everlasting truth of time, that it erodes all things. The mighty kingdom of Ozymandias lies now, at the very best, buried beneath the sands of some unknown desert. It is if the sand in an hourglass has finally run out and buried everything belonging to the king of kings. His mighty property now lies forlorn beneath the sands of time. As far as the eye can see only the desecrated remains of some statue serves to prove the existence of his antiquity. No matter the ruler’s iron resolve, the achievements of his/her reign, and the vastness of his/her ego time engulfs them all. Shelley realised that time is always in short supply as nothing seemingly lasts forever.
I chose Ozymandias because it represents one of the philosophical concepts I carry on a day to day basis. Why try if in the end everything will always fade? One day everyone that shall read this as well as myself will eventually fade, and we might all be forgotten. One day our star will eventually fade and render our entire solar system uninhabitable like our present civilization. Humanity is never entirely sure if anything matters in the end. Yet, we constantly strive to find meaning in such a portentous existence, so perhaps the hope of a journey overshadowing the destination is what drives us on. Philosophy such as this has always vested my intrigue and brought a welcomed viewpoint on the nature of the human condition.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)
ReplyDeleteWilliam Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
This piece can be identified as a Shakespearean Sonnet due to it’s ABAB CDCD rhyme scheme and the GG rhyme scheme of the concluding couplet. In his sonnet, Shakespeare compares someone to a summer’s day. He claims that this person’s beauty is eternal while a typical summer eventually comes to an end. Where summer sometimes dims, this person always shines. While a summer day is beautiful, Shakespeare considers this person to be much more breathtaking.
While looking for a sonnet to write about, this particular one caught my eye because it is referenced in The Foreigner. I’ve also always somewhat admired Shakespeare and was searching specifically for one of his pieces. After reading this sonnet, I was taken with it’s beauty and all the talk about summer was a nice break from this cold weather we’ve been having.
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ReplyDelete"Mutation" by William Cullen Bryant
ReplyDeleteThey talk of short-lived pleasure–be it so–
Pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease:
Remorse is virtue’s root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness:
Thus joy, o’erborne and bound, doth still release
His young limbs from the chains that round him press.
Weep not that the world changes–did it keep
A stable, changeless state, ’twere cause indeed to weep.
This is a Spenserian sonnet with three quatrains and a couplet: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE
Bryant states that just like pleasure, pain can be something that is short-lived and releases its victim quickly; the worst pains are often the shortest. What’s more, pain is usually followed by something good. Nightmares are followed by a welcome, shining morning; death brings relief to any stain. Bryant extends this emotional idea to a psychological one: improper actions are swiftly followed by remorse, which eventually results in redemption and innocence. All of this - bad emotions being followed by good, and bad actions being followed by redemption - demonstrates that change is a good thing.
I picked this sonnet because I’ve always agreed with the idea that physical emotions’ briefness render them not something to be prioritized. Pain is not something to be avoided if it ends in desirable long-term consequences. This idea first came to me when I broke my wrist and experienced several hours of intense pain; two days after the incident, I noticed that I had practically forgotten all of the pain. Physical happiness works the same way. Immediately after playing video games for hours and feeling satisfaction from the hand-eye coordination, I notice that the emotion comes only a faint memory, with no lasting consequences. Feelings which are almost purely physical are not very valuable in the long-term.