The Incendiary Lit Heroic Crown Affair Day 5!
Now that we’ve celebrated our fathers, and rested our mental rhyming dictionaries, it’s back to the grind. Write another sonnet. If you’re on track with the organization and ready to go, go for it. If you’re struggling with the form see #1. If you’re struggling with the narrative/structure see #2.
#1— @%*in’ Sonnets! Right? Rhymes and syllabics (or stupid iambs) are terribly limiting and frustrating. However, what is poetry, really, except limiting prose to the absolute essentials? So it’s further focusing the rhythms and sounds of the poem so that to the ear it is driven as much as to the eye. When you can, a good poem should always also be read aloud, even if it’s under your breath on a red eye when you have the only reading light still illuminating the plane’s cabin, which is because when we read in our heads we hear the words only in a limited fashion, abbreviated mostly to their meaning and words that you subconsciously link to that word (and their physical representation) so it’s a big jumble of meaning and brain stimuli and the sound is muffled. When you hear it, though, you are much more detached from the meaning, as you’re focusing more on hearing the sound first, then interpreting the signals into meaning, so the whole line of impression is altered and sound is on the forefront of your subconscious. The rhymes and rhythms of the sonnet play to that. They organize the sounds which form the skeletal structure of the poem, and ultimately the sequence. That’s why you’re not just writing this long poem in free verse. It’s to focus on sound and rhythm so much more than you normally would (or at least, in a different way) in free verse. However, if the rhyming’s presenting a problem, one option I’ll try to keep helping with is writing the base of the poem in free verse. Keep the first line and the last line as they must be, again, typing the first line then 12 blank lines, and the last line (both of which, of course are pulled from Sonnet 15). Fill in the middle lines with normal free verse, but keep the lines syllabics between 8 and 10, preferably with a free syllable. You’ll be reworking the lines to fit the rhyme scheme, which is sometimes much easier than writing it originally in the rhyme, and allows you to keep the content a little purer. Seriously, I know it feels a little like cheating, but if you have trouble with rhymes, or even particular line’s rhyme, you don’t initially cater the content of the poem to the rhyme. That would be more of letting the rhyme drive the poem, which is definitely not what you want to do. If you are writing free verse base poems, write at least two, because you’ll be going back and reworking the rhymes, which can take a long time to do, so keep your schedule a little more open.
#2— What Next? How do you continue, what are the individual sonnets about? Well, that depends on your original sonnet (S15). If it’s a narrative poem, or a poem about a specific significant event as I’d suggested, consider witnesses. There’s physical witnesses, people at the scene, or who saw the person/thing or accident as it happened. Consider inanimate objects like Paintings, doorknobs, plants, or even consider animals. A bird watching indifferently, a family dog terribly upset. This might be cool to get the reader out of your head and shake things up a little bit. Also consider historical figures who might have an insight into the narrative at hand, or pop culture figures. Consider acquaintances who could have similar stories in their past, or consider what could happen across town that would starkly contrast with the event of Sonnet 15. Or even across the world, the universe. Consider astronomy and ancient societies. People love to learn something in a poem, and if you can find a metaphoric parallel with an interesting, not-too-widely-known fact, be it scientific or historical, people will be into it. Extended metaphors aren’t terribly uncommon. Go for it.