First. Ever. Sonnet...
I love to watch him, carefully and still
Who played out ardour, called me gentle names
I sit up here, upon what was our hill
And cry the world abroad my lover's fame.
His eyes, his heart, I fain would hold aloft
His clever fingers, soul of his embrace,
His well-made arms, all graced with hairs so soft,
His swift and shapely legs, and O! his face.
But see, his loving guardians, you are hard
Whose rough words me from rightful place do cheat
For I am sworn to take this noble shard
And part my false love now from all his meat.
And you who saw his acts but did not chide
You'd best hope that from me you too can hide.
Nice work! I like it. Strong idea, and good execution, especially considering it's your first!
ReplyDeleteNitpicks:
A few of the lines, especially L10 "Whose rough words me from rightful place do cheat" are awkwardly phrased and could probably have been made to flow better. (Producing large amounts of natural-sounding pentameter is something which comes with practice and only with practice, I think.)
L14 "You'd best hope that from me you too can hide": "you too" carries some odd stress here, and the phrasing is slightly strange (not as odd as L10, though). It wouldn't matter so much elsewhere, but because it carries so much weight as the punchline it's especially important for it to flow.
Good job on the volta: you did it well, and it's often tricky to bring it in especially for sonnet newbies.
In case it's useful: http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ is the best formalist workshop I know. They've been very helpful to me in the past.
I am still not sure what the poem has to do with lilies!
Yeah, lines 10 and 14 were the ones that made me cringe the most, but just wanted to get the first rough version done and out there. The challenge being 30 poems in April (or at least a poem every day, depending on how you interpret it) means little room for glossing, and I was so sick of sonnet rules by that point I just wanted it over and done with!
DeleteIs the volta the final couplet?
And "lilies" is for: both the flowers that represent death, are so fragile-looking but both resilient and apt to stain and Lilith, in her personification as vengeful woman scorned by a powerful male entity.
Can't believe you've never written a sonnet before! Well done, O sonnet virgin! Slamming sonnets - there's a concept. Verily, here and there thou dost wax a tad Shakespearean, which is possibly a bit heavy on the ear for a 21st century audience. But it has a good turn, in two parts. And it all scans and rhymes where it should. What has the lover done which gets him sliced and diced? I too am puzzled about what the 15 lilies have to do with it.
ReplyDeleteTa! I was pretty dismayed at the speed with which I resigned myself to faux-Elizabethan blah but decided that I'd forgive myself this once for the purposes of getting the job over and done with.
ReplyDeleteI was pleased I got the scansion sorted (despite resorting to the contorted clause-forms), and - despite not being a fan of either end-rhymes or iambic rhythms (I'm not convinced I can do them without covering everything in CHEESE!), I think I did a reasonable job there.
#15 is to denote that this is Poem 15 in my NaPoWriMo series for 2013, and - as mentioned above - "lilies" is for: both the flowers that represent death, are so fragile-looking but both resilient and apt to stain, and Lilith, in her personification as vengeful woman scorned by a powerful male entity.