Good morning!
As you know, Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter.
The iamb is the heartbeat rhythm:
du-DAH, du-DAH, du-DAH, du-DAH, du-DAH
Because the iamb has two syllables and is repeated five times (PENTAmeter), it calls for 10 syllables in each line.
On the Bard's special day, let's try to use an aspect of a sonnet in our writing. Choose from ONE of the following:
- Write a poem with 14 lines.
- Write a poem with 10 syllables in each line.
- Write in iambic rhythm.
- Write in iambic pentameter.
- Write with A-B-A-B rhyme.
- Write a poem about love
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 1, for my Creative Writing Students
By Allison Berryhill
I wanted for them each to find a muse
And push like Sisyphus against a thought--
To hear an inner voice and set it loose
And touch the place where soul with sound is wrought.
To give them tools to carve onto the page
The exquisite release of hidden self,
To gift them ways to transform joy and rage
To poem, essay, book upon a shelf.
But hour six too often slid away
With chattered scattered shot and little more
And what I’d hoped for them to learn each day?
Abandoned, crumpled drafts upon the floor.
Ah, did they learn the lesson of the pen?
Revise, revise, and let me try again.
Your turn!
Remember, you don't need to write an entire sonnet. Just choose one aspect to mirror.
Happy writing,
AB
1. Heart of stone beating boiled blood,
ReplyDelete2. Sweetened words of venomous tongue,
3. Filling up a flower-ladened grave with mud.
4. Where fire takes over air inside their lung.
5. Love so sweet is so bitter,
6. Tasting as both lemon and tart,
7. One may call them a quitter.
8. To ignore the beating of a heart.
9. The stone cold walls harboring forgotten desire,
10. And falling into the depths of love-kindled flame,
11. To warm itself in another's fire.
12. And nevermore lay claim to fame.
13. Indeed the sphinx of love and more,
14. Will give even give fish the wings of love to soar.
Good job of mastering the rhyme pattern!
DeleteThe brightest stars shine with a pretty hue
ReplyDeleteBut nothing like the beauty of the you
You teach the torch to burn so bright
Your face could be no more than right
I am Icaruas and you are shining like the sun
I fly too close I melt near thee
When I am close to thee my heart weighs a ton
I like how you blended hints of Shakespeare (you teach the torch to burn so bright) with the Icarus myth! Good job rhyming--and working with iambic rhythm!
DeleteTo which if you with patient ears attend
ReplyDeleteWill hear the sadness of my sorrows now
The struggles that I have endured will halt
You will help me with the process and pain
For I have felt what needs to make a mends
Won't you see the process that I have made
I love how you used a line from the prologue as your jumping off point! Excellent!
DeleteWe sit and listen to the rain
ReplyDeleteAs it patters down onto the tin
I listen to hear it drain
Onto the ground off of the trim
Mary, I love seeing you work with the ABAB rhyme scheme. Your poem has a sense of peacefulness. The word patters is a nice one!
DeleteA Poem about Love
ReplyDeleteOne time, I thought someone loved me
I finally thought I was getting somewhere
I would finally be able to get
What I seemed to be missing
But it wasn’t love he gave me
I was his therapist, he was my patient
He dumped all his trauma and feelings onto me,
Without any concern that I was crumbling at the seams
He paid me through gifts, like Santa to a child
He would pay me for listening to him,
This method made me feel like
A bird in a cage, his to use and play with
He made me feel like an object
Calling me names like ‘hot’ and ‘sexy’
I was uncomfortable with his ‘compliments’
And I wanted him to stop
But he also called me ‘beautiful’
And hearing these words made me feel specialMy family never called me that, neither did my friends
She never even called me that when I dated her
I couldn’t escape his wrath
I was his puppet on a strings
No matter how hard I pulled away,
He had the stronger grip
But as time went on, he kept losing his grip
This would make him angry, or “sad”
And he called me back,
Using the voice of a snake to fool me
Eventually, he showed his true colors
He snapped at me, and told me what he thought
He told me he was afraid that some girl would take me away
That I would leave him for just some other girl
That’s when the hypnosis finally broke
I realized that he wasn’t giving me love
He was playing me like a cheap kazoo
And I needed to escape
So I cut the strings he kept me on
With the newfound courage in myself
While I hurt myself trying to escape
He hurt me more in the end
Now when I hear his name
I can’t help but gag to myself
Thinking that I was stupid enough
To be his doll
To be his therapist
To be his crutch
To be his bird
To be his version of a “lover”
Wow, Addie! This is complex! I like how you brought back the puppet strings "so I cut the strings." I am also excited to see how you are creating strong, original metaphors, such as "I was his therapist, he was my patient." Write on, Addie! Bravo!
ReplyDeleteA B A B Rhyme:
ReplyDeleteNow's not the time to hesitate.
The space for error much too thin.
Blur the surroundings and concentrate.
Bring the focus from within.