must... write.. sonnet...

[Stella_Omega]

and I am not happy with my results thus far.
My beloved daughter can give me the meter and rhyme pattern
(Shakespearian form, Iambic Pentameter) but there's no way I can show her the poem and get help with the content...
Anyways, maybe the Spencerian form will work better for what I'm trying to say...
I feel like a total dolt. I hate poetry.
Anyone? Shanglan?

 

[BlackShanglan]

I'd be delighted to help in any way! Want to shoot me a draft or a comment on what you're trying for?

 

[impressive]

I feel for you, Stella. Poetic form, while I understand it on an academic level, just leaves me cold.

The more poetry I write, the more I feel I should appreciate it ... but I just don't.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I've written a couple of sonnets. They're on my member page, and they're embarrassing. I leave them up for that reason.

The problem is, there's so much more to a sonnet than just the form. It has to have grace and musicality that's very difficult for most of us to achieve, especially writing in the kind of blunt and ugly vernacular we use these days.

You know the feeling of reading a rhyming poem and you can just see where the author let his meaning be compromised by the need to find a rhyme? That's what happens to me in sonnets, and the result is awful. You can see the hammer marks and spackle all over the poem. The results are something like a deformed idiot trying to wear a beautiful suit.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I'd like to help, but I'm not the right person for it. I like writing poems, but I usually ignore form. Takes the fun out of it for me.

I managed to write one erotic poem that rhymes (mostly) and I tried to avoid the spackling Dr. M references. But then I received a comment or two about compromising my rhymes for the sake of meaning.

So I usually avoid rhyming....fuck suck luck duck stuck...

 

[Stella_Omega]

I've written a couple of sonnets. They're on my member page, and they're embarrassing. I leave them up for that reason.

The problem is, there's so much more to a sonnet than just the form. It has to have grace and musicality that's very difficult for most of us to achieve, especially writing in the kind of blunt and ugly vernacular we use these days.

You know the feeling of reading a rhyming poem and you can just see where the author let his meaning be compromised by the need to find a rhyme? That's what happens to me in sonnets, and the result is awful. You can see the hammer marks and spackle all over the poem. The results are something like a deformed idiot trying to wear a beautiful suit.

exactly.
And the Iambic pentameter, (dah-DAH, dah-DAH, dah-DAH, dah-DA, Hdah-DAH ) is easy to do in Italian, and very difficult in English, where so many of our sentences go DAH-duh, DAH-dah.
I don't neceessarily mind the blunt and ugly vernacular, I think it could make an astounding effect, if the subject is right. You sure can't say "Shall I compare thee to a Summer's Day?" in any modern sonnet.
But I would love to read about.. I don't know, a race car, or walking on a city street, or shooting heroin, Rhys if you're reading this or just banging the tits off of someone..
I remember reading Archibald MacLiesh's "Sonnet to the End Of The World" as a teenager, and it rawked;

Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe,
And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb---
Quite unexpectedly the top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,
There in the sudden blackness the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing --- nothing at all.

So there's proof it can be done.

 

[Samandiriel]

I can help you with dirty limmericks.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I can help you with dirty limmericks.

You can write them all, I can't even start!

 

[Samandiriel]

You can write them all, I can't even start!

I'll make you a song book for Christmas.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I'll make you a song book for Christmas.

Will they all be about me?

 

[Samandiriel]

Will they all be about me?

Of course lovely one, if you so wish.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Well, my sonnet is looking better this morning, especially if I unfocus my eyes at the verso
I'll send it to Shang and Abs, as soon as it's not miserably embarrassing!

 

[Samandiriel]

Well, my sonnet is looking better this morning, especially if I unfocus my eyes at the verso
I'll send it to Shang and Abs, as soon as it's not miserably embarrassing!

Abs is stupid, I hope she gets it.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Abs is stupid, I hope she gets it.

I'll send it to you instead, then.

 

[Samandiriel]

I shall sing my sweet verse to Omega,
though I am no Suzanne Vega,
but she will curl up at my feet
from my words bittersweet,
Gotta remember to take my Viagra.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I shall sing my sweet verse to Omega,
though I am no Suzanne Vega,
but she will curl up at my feet
from my words bittersweet,
Gotta remember to take my Viagra.

You've woo'd and won me!


I am SO fuckin' easy...

 

[Samandiriel]

You've woo'd and won me!

Meet me under the bleachers in five.

 

[Alex De Kok]

Unlike LadyJeanne, I enjoy the occasional attempt at form poetry. It's my free verse that sucks. I try to enjoy free verse, but so often it seems to be either good prose written in short lines, or the author's ego saying 'look how clever I am'. Obviously such a simplistic view must be wrong, but I just cannot get into free verse. It's not for me. But then, I most definitely do not claim to be a poet. However, having signed up for the Open University's level 2 Creative Writing course next year (part of my 'fun way to a Bachelor of Arts degree Cunning Plan') I'm in for a six week module on poetry. Serves me right!

Okay, diversion over. I've only ever written two sonnets. One for my wife, and one I wrote for last year's National Nude Day, which you'll find among my submissions (it even got an 'H'!) I'm not sure which sonnet form it follows (if any!) but I enjoyed writing it. I would dispute Stella_Omega's assertion that iambic pentameter is difficult in English. From what little I have read about poetry, iambic pentameter is supposed to be almost a natural form in English. Certainly, if I set to writing poetry (a rare event) iambic pentameter seems to come easily to me. Or at least pentameter does. Some of it may be trochaic.

Quite why someone who claims not to be a poet has a portrait of an Elizabethan soldier-poet as his AV, and a quote from one of same gentleman's sonnets in his sig. makes me wonder sometimes. Although, it does refer to writing . . .

If another set of eyes to look over the sonnet would be welcome, feel free to forward it.

Alex

 

[SummerMorning]

See? That was poetry. I still don't get it.

To me, the closest I can get is absurd verse. Which is like what Joyce wrote, only shorter.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Meet me under the bleachers in five.

I miss the smell of AquaNet, and Strawberry lip gloss

 

[Stella_Omega]

Unlike LadyJeanne, I enjoy the occasional attempt at form poetry. It's my free verse that sucks. I try to enjoy free verse, but so often it seems to be either good prose written in short lines, or the author's ego saying 'look how clever I am'. Obviously such a simplistic view must be wrong, but I just cannot get into free verse. It's not for me. But then, I most definitely do not claim to be a poet. However, having signed up for the Open University's level 2 Creative Writing course next year (part of my 'fun way to a Bachelor of Arts degree Cunning Plan') I'm in for a six week module on poetry. Serves me right!

Okay, diversion over. I've only ever written two sonnets. One for my wife, and one I wrote for last year's National Nude Day, which you'll find among my submissions (it even got an 'H'!) I'm not sure which sonnet form it follows (if any!) but I enjoyed writing it. I would dispute Stella_Omega's assertion that iambic pentameter is difficult in English. From what little I have read about poetry, iambic pentameter is supposed to be almost a natural form in English. Certainly, if I set to writing poetry (a rare event) iambic pentameter seems to come easily to me. Or at least pentameter does. Some of it may be trochaic.

Quite why someone who claims not to be a poet has a portrait of an Elizabethan soldier-poet as his AV, and a quote from one of same gentleman's sonnets in his sig. makes me wonder sometimes. Although, it does refer to writing . . .

If another set of eyes to look over the sonnet would be welcome, feel free to forward it.

Alex

The av is cute, .so don't change it please

I was able to flip the accent on most of my lines, (from DAH-dah to dah-DAH) but not all of them yet...
I always point to the man I consider a master of Vers Libre, Don Marquis He made fun of the form, but- in lampooning it, he wrote some great stuff.

 

[Samandiriel]

I miss the smell of AquaNet, and Strawberry lip gloss

Then be prepared to flashback baby.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Then be prepared to flashback baby.

You're SO good to me!

 

[Samandiriel]

You're SO good to me!

You deserve only the best baby...and that's ME!

 

[Stella_Omega]

... Gat a rhyme for "now"?

because the only thing I can think of is "now"