Writing Poetry
Sonnet Workshop: A Taste of Tears
How to write a sonnet. Includes lesson, tips, assignment, and a chance to pick apart the teacher’s sonnet!
The Sonnet
What is a sonnet? A sonnet is a poem or stanza consisting of 14 lines of iambic (ta TUM) pentameter (5 feet):
ta TUM — ta TUM — ta TUM — ta TUM — ta TUM
There are several classical rhyme schemes associated with sonnets; thus you have the “Petrarchan Sonnet” (also known as the “Italian Sonnet”), the Shakespearian Sonnet, the Miltonian, Wordsworthian, Spenserian, and so on. Study hard, and perhaps one day you can invent your own!
We’re going to start this lesson with the popular and well-known Shakespearian Sonnet. It consists of three alternately rhymed quatrains (verses of four lines each), and a couplet (verse of two lines), rhymed ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Here’s an example (Shakespeare’s 116th Sonnet):
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no; it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
Generally, the first quatrain states an idea; the second illustrates and elaborates upon it; the third treats it differently; the couplet at the end sums it up. Or, put another way, the first octet usually asks a question or puts forth an issue and the last sestet answers the question or resolves a problem.
Things to Carefully Avoid!
Remember that you should use fresh, natural, modern language. Your sonnets should not be mere echoes or imitations of the past. If the sonnet as a form is to survive, it must be constantly reinvented. Shakespeare did not write using language of his forefathers or erudite scholars; he wrote in the vernacular of the common people of his time, mostly for their entertainment. His writing is full of subtle (and not so subtle) humor, plays on words, real flesh and blood characters.
Don’t get creative with contractions (like “prov’d” in the above example, or more commonly, words like ’tis, ’twas, ne’er, etc).
Don’t force rhythm or rhyme by the use of word inversion such as: “So that I might the villain greet” (rather than “So that I might greet the villain”).
Don’t pad your lines with emphatic verb phrases such as “when stars do shine” in order to fit a metric pattern. That’s cheating!
REVIEW: Remember the basics…
14 lines of
iambic = two beats “ta TUM” per foot pentameter = five feet per line
RHYTHM ta TUM — ta TUM — ta TUM — ta TUM — ta TUM
RHYME A B A B C D C D E F E F G G
Tip! Try tapping the beat with the fingers of one hand — one upbeat (lift your finger for “ta”) and one downbeat (drum your finger on the table for “TUM”). When you finish all the fingers of one hand, you have one line of a sonnet!
Read with a Critical Eye!
What’s wrong with this poem? Don’t be shy, all errors were intentional, so I’ll be the first to own up to them!
Maybe read this first, though — this is the back-story to the following poem (even if it’s not, exactly, the original — it was a reconstruction made about 10 years after the original workshop horror story, below):
Bleeding on the Page
Teardrops of blue-black ink fall to the page. Souls bleed in fourteen lines of tortured verse, That limps along, five-footed, filled with rage. What angst! How could it possibly get worse? But worse it gets — for he’s compelled to share, As literature, the sorrow and the pain. This solitary madness must ensnare And captivate, and drive us all insane. Oh, certainly to this we can relate - Soul-sucking torment’s siren call. Let’s just give in to cruel whims of fickle fate, Then, pen a poem! Entertain us all! The poet shares artistic anguish in his heart.
Assignment:
- Practice writing a few sentences in iambic pentameter. Remember: ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM
- In Shakespeare’s 116th sonnet, what is used as a metaphor for love?
- Explain what Shakespeare is saying in his 116th sonnet. (In straight prose, not poetry — though if you’re itching for a challenge, try saying the same thing — using modern language — in sonnet form!)
- Try your hand at writing a Shakespearian Sonnet, on any topic you choose.
- BONUS (for Medium Readers): Provide an appropriate alternative ending to the example, above.
Questions? Ask!
