Sonnet 1

I now move on to sonnets. A few words about them before I share the first of them.

As with haiku, modern poets tend to call something a sonnet, and then proceed to invent any meter and rhyme scheme they wish. That is their right, but as I mentioned with haiku, I'm not sure what the point of following forms is, when one authorizes one's self to break any and all of the rules for same.

Not that there is only one hard and fast set of rules for a sonnet, as there are several varieties  During this exploration over the next few weeks I'll be composing sonnets of more than one formal structure, but I'll stick with one kind at a time, writing a few and then moving on to another variety when the time feels right. I may experiment with free verse sonnets near the end of the exploration, I haven't decided yet.

Actor that I am, I've decided to start with what's commonly known as the Shakespearean sonnet. (Though not invented by him.) Fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, three quatrains and ending with a rhyming couplet. Before the couplet, the quatrains generally follow an abab cdcd efef  rhyme scheme, and that is what I will do for now. (I will think about half-rhymes, like Shakespeare did, as needed.)

Many Shakespearean sonnets present the volta or change in tone, on the eleventh line, at  the start of the couplet. Sometimes the volta occurs on the ninth line, at the start of the final quatrain. I tend to prefer the former, but I will be playing with the latter as well.

Shakespeare himself usually confined his sonnets to matters of love or lust. While that topic will be covered by my own sonnets, I won't confine myself exclusively to that subject matter.

Finally, the point of a sonnet, or to me any poem, is to make breaks in meter come at natural breaks in a sentence, and that's what I try to do in my poetry. Breaking up a sentence at an awkward moment just to fit the meter is to me, usually cheaper.

And now, the first sonnet of this exploration.


So many things you do are not for me:
The easy smile. The tilting of your head.
The tapping foot you do not think I see.
How you refuse to drive, but walk instead.
You don't consider me before you write
The sentences and paragraphs you share.
Each time you read a poem with delight
It isn't done because you think I care.
A thousand little things that make you shine
Have earned for you a small place in my heart.
Yet none of them for others, I'd opine;
They would continue if I would depart.
But I consider that you've not been told.
It is a secret I prefer to hold.