Assignment #9

READ: in PACKET: 8-14, Hollander's section on sonnets (check the index)... And, to stretch your mind on the form/content issue, in PAM--p279-80 (3 sonnets by Ted Berrigan) 468-9 (3 sonnets by Bernadette Mayer).

TURN-IN: glosses and poems per usual.

ASSIGNMENT#9:

The sonnet, or “little song,” is a 14 line poem stolen from the Italian love-poem tradition (google Petrarch for details). In English, over the past four centuries it has gained a few admirers and a few recognized forms—the most common one is a meter of iambic pentameter (daDum daDum daDum daDum daDum) and a fairly rigid rhyme scheme. Shakespeare wrote his ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, but any formal rhyme scheme over 14 lines will do for your first effort. (ex. ABA BCB CDC EFE FF, ABBA CDDC EFGEFG, ABCD ABCD EFG EFG, ABABAB CDDC EFFE, you get the idea...)

Sonnets have historically been written in the form of arguments, and when I say argument, I mean a text that attempts to persuade. In a love poem, persuasion can be seen in seduction or in a genuine expression of more spiritual and serious affection. When a sonneteer meditates on death or marriage or the decision to beget children, by the end of the poem reasons pro and con have often been discussed and a conclusion reached. You can argue taxes, drum a roommate out with escalating insults, make an impassioned plea for green architecture—anything can be an argument. Sonnets are less often "story" poems, though sonnet cycles (like Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus) can be written around an epic narrative. Yet each single sonnet in the Rilke cycle attempts to deeply address just one idea relevant to this tale of love and pride and loss.

Usually a sonnet contains a “turn” about two thirds of the way through—an AHA! moment, or a shift in logical language (if this and if this and if this THEN this), or a changing of direction (often signalled with diction like “yet well I know” WS 18 or “But” WS 130 or “but just from listening” RI.i. or “Or perhaps he would stay there” RII.xiv. or “but never this /fine specimen” from e.e.c.’s pity this monster...). No matter how it is offered up, a turn is nearly always present in a sonnet, signaling the close of the poem.

So—-meter (all I want of meter is that you do a scan of your poem... and take care with that element of sound... yours needn't be regular), rhyme, argument, a turn in logic: these elements, plus the kitchen sink—that’s all I want to see in your sonnets. Otherwise, surprise me and yourselves.