Assignment for 27 February
For Tuesday, write what we will call an “American Sonnet” –
a 14 line poem with lines of 10 syllables.
These lines do not need to follow a rhyme scheme; but if any of the 14
line-ending words do rhyme, all the lines need to follow a rhyme scheme. That is, rhymes should be intentional if you
choose to use them, not random. The poem should have two stanzas: the first
stanza should consist of 8 lines and the second should consist of 6 lines. Line 9 needs to begin with a shift away from
the direction of the first stanza. In other words, we will think of line 9 as
the “but” line.
Variations on this basic pattern, which is already a
variation on stricter traditional sonnet forms, are permitted within reason. The
issue is intention rather than randomness.
We are not engaged in the organic determination of form that
characterizes “free” verse. Rather, we are attempting to work within a formal
structure right from the very beginning.
Suggestion: You may well want to pick your subject before
you head into the writing of your sonnet in order to “orchestrate” the subject
with regard to the turn or “but” in line 9.
Examples of sonnets from our text include:
Billy Collins 77
& 43
Bill Shakes 274-79
E.B.Browning 47
P.B.Shelley 280
Bill Words 357
John Donne 100
Bob Frost 130-131
Bob Hayden 147
Gerry Man Hop 161-162
John Keats 179-180
& 182
Claude McKay 222
Edna St. Vincdent Millay 223-224
John Milton 225
Sir Philip S 285
Eddie Spenser 288
Sir Tom Wyatt 361
W.B.Yeats 370
Then to round out the alphabet we have this by J. A. Zoller
from Living on the Flood Plain
Standing Water
Where water lies on low ground, grass dies.
Its smooth surface, that mirrored sky, slowly clouds.
Water striders haunt its face, mosquito larvae
hang mysteriously below the blue reflection,
a mud turned-dirt-ring trails its slow recession.
Where water finds rest, decay begins.
Who is to say the life that attends its dying –
Frogs, mosquitos, water bugs, algae, mud life –
is less necessary, less worthy, less living?
Are we to say one
but not the other?
– the falling, streaming, soaking, filling but not
the wandering, eroding, this hanging around?
And do we not judge, as it drives us away,
that earthy, once welcoming air turned stink?
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