Tags
composition habits, Eratosphere, Expanding Notes, George Simmers, My Master Sonnet. Patrick Gillespie, Snakeskin, The Sonnet Board
The editor of Snakeskin gave me a great shout-out prior to the publication of my four-sonnet sequence, “Expanding Notes”, recently.
There’s a weird kind of freedom that arises from taking on this kind of project. Standing on the shoulders of the writers I quoted, I found I had a view I wouldn’t normally have. I was allowed to express sentiments in collaboration with them, sentiments I would not normally have considered expressing myself.
“Expanding Notes” was published in Snakeskin #179, August/September 2011.
I haven’t yet composed any music for these sonnets. They are assembled in the order they were written between August and October last year. As has often been the case over the last six years, I have been given valuable assistance in editing these on an online poetry workshop, Eratosphere. Another online poetry workshop which has been very useful is The Sonnet Board.
Patrick Gillespie has seen this as an example of good contemporary verse written in rhyme and metre.
Here’s another acrostic sonnet. Apart from the acrostic being exact with regard to capital letters and small letters there are two other unusual patterns. See if you can find them!
My Master Sonnet
My master sonnet is the soul of wit,
yet explication needs a beady eye.
My yen to write is at the heart of it;
all sentimental aspirations lie
sequestered as I see I am inclined
to forge a kind of metrical device
exactly showing what is on my mind:
reward arises if you read it twice.
So I have planted equal rows of fun,
observant of the laws of sonnetry,
not in the hope of winning any fame;
no, concentrated, I designed a game,
easy to play – note that it comes free –
the perfect gift for poets. Anyone?
The editor of Snakeskin, George Simmers, has linked to Patrick Gillespie’s article and commented on it: http://snakeskinpoetry.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/thoughts-about-rhyme/
No doubt many formalists are unable to write good free verse. I myself feel, like Robert Frost, that “writing free verse is like playing tennis without a net”. This is not to say that I don’t like free verse. I just don’t feel confident about being able to write it well.
As a staple diet, however, I do think free verse becomes very dull, and at times I rail against the strong bias towards free verse in contemporary poetry circles. This may be seen by some as merely self-serving, but tolerating an unjustified predominance would not be doing anyone any favours.
Here’s an essay written by A.E. Stallings in defence of formal verse: http://ramblingrose.com/poetry/others/stallings_essay.html
Congrats!! I like Prescience best, though looks like torture to do 🙂
Thanks, Marion!
“Prescience” was, as intimitated in the sonnet, a piece of cake. One of the quickest pieces I’ve ever written. Sometimes one can think too much instead of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). I’ll see if I can write a couple more now.
(If you want some real torture then I can recommend “The Master Sonnet” exercise.)
“Form is not about control, it’s about giving up control.” So speaks Alicia Stallings here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2011/09/conversation-ae-stallings-poet-and-translator-inspired-by-the-classics.html
I find this especially true of my acrostic aphorism sonnets, where I tap ideas that wouldn’t surface otherwise.
I wrote one more last night and it can be viewed temporarily here: http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=15934
I suddenly remembered my earlier drafts were online on The Sonnet Board. I asked George Simmers if I should delete the drafts, as I know some editors are strict about that, but George thinks it’s fine. So you can see a few comments, from Mike Alexander especially, on the earlier drafts: http://thesonnetboard.yuku.com/search/text/?q=Expanded+note&orderby=created_at&forum=2&submit=Search+Forum