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Sonnet (Sonnet) by zodiac Off-work Sundays we walked to tide pools,
shoppers at a bazaar: here sea glass, here
miss, here the urchin, here a clavicle
of deadwood scrubbed white, bullâs-eye seastar, here
black hobnailed rocks. The ocean turning pat,
obsequious, eager to make the sale,
held out a short arms-length of argyle, lace,
some silk handwork I was sure turning over
would show newsprint, whirled stains, some fakery.
We walked, bored sunstruck tourists, full as moons,
until the tide all in a tantrum klar-ed
its buoy-bells, counted, recounted, charged
the market, curled back, counted and again
swept up, to end things. We welcomed it in.
Up the ladder:
Slowing - or, A Love Poem with Eggs and Short Lines
Down the ladder:
Thanks (Dovina)
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 8.428572
Posted: February 5, 2006 8:56 PM PST; Last modified: February 5, 2006 8:56 PM PSTWeighted score: 5.922085 Overall Rank: 1414 Comments:
[10]
Angelicasassy @ 72.40.4.69
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5-Feb-06/9:57 PM
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Reply
Now this is poetry!! Congrats, you are my first 10. Well this poem is!!
Interesting approach, decent dismount.
I think I need explanation. I thought a sonnet had a distinctive rhyme pattern. (14 lines). That I see here. But the alternate rhyming between lines 1-12 is not clear. If I'm wrong about my idea ofa sonnet, please correct me. I find it rather confusing to understand a good sonnet, as I see different style wherever I check it out. This seeems to be a good piece from the vtes that I see, nevertheless, I want to make sure of what I'm voting. Till then...
There are several typical rhyme-schemes for sonnets, including Shakespearean, Petrarchan and so on. None of them are given much thought these days. The outstanding feature of a sonnet is that it has 14 lines. Most sonnets, almost all of them, in fact, are written in iambic pentameter (10 syllables, bu-BUMP bu-BUMP bu-BUMP bu-BUMP bu-BUMP.) But even that sees a lot of variation nowadays. American poet Nikki Giovanni made a big splash writing "broken sonnets", for example, which used several rhythms and line-lengths. It's not even, as far as I know, currently expected by most people that sonnets rhyme. This one does, of course:
ABABCDdEdFGgFF
Your sonnet is good from matter point of view, but I am still not convinced about the structure. I've been reading a couple of sonnets and this is a bit different (again, I might be wrong). I'll give you an 8, and if I am more satisfied I'll vote better, if allowed. Sorry for the doubts. Sonnets are a new subject for me to catch up on.
Suit yourself.
If he was incapable of writing a decent more formal version of a sonnet I could see where you'd have a complaint but he can do formal too.
http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.j
That one has fifteen lines. And the rhyme-scheme isn't Petrarchan. Oh, WHY can't I write a good sonnet just ONCE?!!?!?!
Umm, because "good" sonnets are boring?
Are they?
Leda And The Swan - WB Yeats A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop? He plays with the form--the broken line, the rhyme scheme, so it's a departure from standard form, sure--but so what? Roethke's _In a Dark Time_ is another sonnet that you almost realize is a sonnet after the fact, because you're so caught up in the language and lyricism. Good stuff.
Do you know what Yeats is talking about in the sonnet?
Don't get me wrong. I'm an old school poetry guy myself. I was basically asking Zodiac if he didn't use the old standard form because he thought it was boring. It does have it's troubles working into modern themes.
To completely oversimplify (understate?) it: sex and death.
Are there "modern themes"? At their core, are they modern? (I'm not being facetious or particularly rhetorical in asking.) Even your Perigenetic Prayer--the language (i.e., your use of a scientific term) is modern--but is it a modern theme?
Leda is a rape fantasy as is this painting by Fuseli.
http://www.litgothic.com/Images/fuseli_n A theme still relevent today but unnoticed by modern culture do to it's old structure. I would like to think my theme is more universal, as modern as it is old.
That's part of it, sure, but Yeats used myth as a metaphor for larger themes. And even the myth on which he based it had wider implications--literally sowing the seeds of disaster. He used a form that was traditionally used for love poetry, which was a shocking--and deliberate--departure that highlighted the violence of it. It's a modern poem, even now I think, far more than it is a traditional sonnet, whatever its structure.
Zeus, in the form of a swan, raped the half-mortal girl Leda. The child he fathered with her was Helen of Troy.
I don't think the standard form is necessarily boring. I definitely don't think it has trouble with modern themes, as long as the rhymes you pick are good and specific to your piece. But I don't want people counting my rhymes instead of being pleasantly surprised by them. Here's a sonnet I used to have here that's more traditional: When we are wed I'll never wake you up when we are wed and I'm just home from closing down the store, the house and bedroom day-warm, dark, and still, your shoes and pants and papers on the floor, an empty bottle, a pack of Marlboro reds haphazard on the sofa-arm and sill - some things I'd tell you, things much better said; but no, I'll never wake you when we're wed. The faith that holds me to you holds me more the less itâs stirred. So sleep, sleep well, until the morning, sleep. Iâll come to bed before you wake and wake you up - though not to tread too loudly now going by the bedroom door, I'll find, is some ungodly act of will.
Are you still listening Amanda?
Yeah guys! (grins). I'm all ears...or in this case, all eyes. It's been years since I actually paid and attention to good poetry, and at times I find it difficult to follow good poetical styles. It seems so simple when I read it, but getting my own in writing is another question. When I see something different from the normal pattern, I am always tempted to question and delve deeper. Excuse the doubts and lack of trust in what you've written, zodiac.... You'll see, given time, I'll be able to appreciate something unique about your poem, different from what one might usually see. I hope your not disappointed.
Alchemy, I don't see your vote here. How do I know what your grading for this poem is?
He hasn't voted on mine lately. It's his rule.
You are being instructed in the various styles of poetry as classified by FORM. I read a very short poem once and liked it because I felt a kinship with a man known for his heavy drinking and rude lifestyle. I was impressed that two humans, very different, could come together on this poem of his.
ART by Charles Bukowski âAs the spirit wanes, the form appears.â I remembered my own spirit waning after work, as I relaxed with a glass of wine and witnessed the appearance of âformsâ that eventually found expression on paper. It seemed that Bukowski, too, had caught the notion that the cares of life and business inhibit creativity, the very notion I was feeling, but had never written as succinctly as his brief poem. A year or so later I listened to a recording of Bukowski. He said that he wrote the poem to express angst at a trend among the poets in his circle. As the spirit of a poet wanes and becomes like a dead thing, a poet turns to forms such as sonnets, villanelles and the like to cover his loss and to give the impression of having something to say. He wrote the poem as a slur on poets become erudite. What Bukowski meant and what I interpreted were entirely different. One thing you and Bukowski have is aversion to FORM, and perhaps it should stay that way.
I happen to know where the new trend of poetry should go.
If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again-- Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train, How at the corner of this avenue And such a street (so are the papers filled) A hurrying man, who happened to be you, At noon today had happened to be killed-- I should not cry aloud--I could not cry Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place-- I should but watch the station lights rush by With a more careful interest on my face; Or raise my eyes and read with greater care Where to store furs and how to treat the hair. - Millay
Nice.
Is this a response to where the new trend of poetry should go or a response to the old form being relevent?
âThe Augean Stables,â by Seamus Heaney
My favorite bas-relief: Athene showing Heracles where to broach the riverbank With a nod of her high helmet, her staff sunk In the exact spot, the Alpheus flowing Out of its course into the deep dung strata Of King Augeasâ reeking yard and stables. Sweet dissolutions from the water tables, Blocked doors and packed floors deluging like gutters⦠And it was there in Olympia, down among green willows, The lustral wash and run of river shallows, That we heard of Sean Brownâs murder in the grounds Of Bellaghy G.A.A. Club. And imagined Hosewater smashing hard back off the asphalt In the car park where his athleteâs blood ran cold.
The word "bored" spoils it. The last sentence can go, I think - leaves it more mysterious. Klar-ed???
Reminds me of Ginsberg's supermarket minus the poet comparisons.
It's one of <~>'s 'How many of these words can you fit in a poem' exercises. I'll give you a Buffalo Head nickel if you can figure out all 12.
bazaar, urchin, clavicle, deadwood, bull's-eye, hobnailed, obsequious, argyle, newsprint, sunstruck, klar(I have no idea what that means), and buoy.
Didn't Ginsberg used to do things like that, like cutting out newspaper articles for inspiration?
Ooh, half-right.
argyle, bull's eye, clavicle, curl, hobnail, klar (the German word meaning "clear"), obsequious, pat, recount, sea glass, tantrum, whirl The trick to these is using weirder words than the prompt, so the prompt words don't show up. I cut-and-paste news articles for inspiration a lot.
I like this - but it seems tired - almost easy - yet forced - like you're searching for something that's already there? Common "Zodiac" - same as you ever was -
just enough talent - way too much time! 357 view(s)
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