The 101:

I have three steps so far from freeverse to decasyllabic line.  Next will be blankverse: in which I should approach iambic pentameter.  Five sounds of two syllables each all of which have a feminine first syllable and a masculine second.   And as was my plan before I was so rudely interrupted by existential sadness, I am backfilling with this project.  Which, thus far, I am enjoying greatly.  There is also some new material not related to this that I am in various stages of completing.  So, unless my work ethic disappears along with my sadness, I shouldn’t think I’ll have too much difficulty catching up.

Here is the sequence as it sits so far:

This is, of course, not a formal course, as I have neither qualifications nor experience with composing such things.

I may do a write up on each entry; however, as of now, this is not planned.  My more classically enabled sweetheart and, two dear and much more classically educated friends might be willing to help me with suggestions as to how to arrange such a thing.   Still, since I have the impression that this project will, at best,  receive one or two hits here and there, I am in no rush to do so.  Regarding the evolving sequence and the progressing sequence to follow, the sonnets themselves are the most important.

 

I’ll have enough to do as it is in catching myself up, as it were!

Wish me luck!

I do not have…

…writer’s block, nor stage fright, for that matter.  I am not quite sure why that is, but still, sometimes it is difficult to bring myself to keep to my schedule.   Particularly now.  I know I could, for example use one of my developed techniques to write several sonnets in the next hour or two; but I can already tell, I am not going to.  I think tomorrow, I will do so.

Lately, I think I have have written a series of more serious and more heartfelt sonnets, and these do not necessarily need to be the norm.   When I started this project, I made a joke about not writing sonnets about trivial matters, still, there is something between writing about one’s sunburn during one’s vacation (in Majorca, I have always maintained) and writing a nice-sounding sonnet about a less trivial but still not a soul deafeningly deep matter.   I thought nothing of doing this at first, as I mentioned.  Still, I think I have been having what a dear friend of mine would call “a case of the blues.”  And I am disinclined to write about this case for the reason above.

Sometimes one gets to a point where one does not wish to delve.  I am after all, more–much more–a musician than a writer of any kind.  And even though music is more difficult than writing–as is practically every field of human endeavour–in the grand scheme of things, music comes rather more easy to me than writing.  So to compose a sonnet that sounds nice the subject of which is rather vague or even cryptic, is not a difficult thing to accomplish.  Still I do feel much better now that I “verbalise” this fact.

I can write, perhaps because of whatever musical, or one might say: “sound related senses,” I may posses, something rather quickly.  Some of these sonnets have ended up being quite nice to my ears; and, as often happens in such a case, capriciousness gives way to depth as one writes, arranges, and rearranges words in such an endeavour.  Sometimes of course the result may…  sound better than it means, or sound more clearly than its meaning is clear.  Still, more often than not, perhaps, these are nearly indistinguishable from those into which I invest quite a lot of thought and emotion and research of one kind or another.

Quite often, a very deeply held feeling can also roll off the pen, even when one is using a particularly difficult form.  Although my general “policy,” as it were, has always been to let the text dictate the best form to use.  I have very many to chose from, in sonnet writing.  When one realises there are:

  1. Shakespearean (abab,cdcd,efef,gg)
  2. Reverse Shakespearean (aa, bcbc, dede, fgfg)
  3. Interlocking Shakespearean (abab, cdcd, dede, fg — fg abab, cdcd, efef)
  4. Italian (1221, 1221, 6*{AB} | {ABC} (six final lines of two or three ephemerals which can vary in almost any combination))
  5. Reverse Italian: 1221, 2112, AA 4* {BA} | {BC} (two or three rhymes but beginning with a couplet.
  6. Spenserian (a1a1, 1212, 2323, bb)
  7. Reverse Spenserian (2121, 3232, 4343, [14][14])   one of my favourites.
  8. Emeronian (a1a2, b1b2, c1c2, [d1][d2])
  9. Reverse Emeronian (1a2a, 1b2b, 1c2c, [1d][2d])   another favourite.
  10. Sequential (1234, 1234, 1234, [12][34]) another invention
  11. unnamed (aa1a, bb1b, cc1c, [1d][1d])
  12. Canopian ([a-a]c[b-b]c, [d-d]f[e-e]f, [g-g]1[h-h]1, [j-j]1) extrapolation from “Roddenberry’s Couplet.”
  13. Unlucky ( ????????????? )

It is easy to conceive of the appropriate form to use given the idea one wishes to express.  So I must now pledge to continue in this way tomorrow wherein It may be easier to accomplish after some rest. : )

Intro: Do not gently go

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.  Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

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On the 17th…

…is sonnet IV of the Shakespeare reflected variety.  As usual, it is a reverse Spenserian.  Internal rhymes are all couplets (also as per usual) however this time, I used all of Shakespeare’s rhyming words for these.  I use these in the order in which they appear, excepting that they are rearranged to couplet form.  Mechanically this worked better than expected; however I feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, as no doubt, Lucas is “gunning” for this one.

Sonnet: To the Muse

O Thou my Muse, reflecteth much Thy flame
That maketh words within me flow like fire,
Abating not, as torrents deadly spill;
Upending doth within me all transpire.

O Thou my Muse, as once I did disclaim–
And though I run a thousand miles away
And lock up all my pen and ink, and still
Without consent, so choose to disobey–

Yet never could I wrest myself, reclaim
My very life, for all was lost… in Thee.
And only once again Thy captive, will
I find such words as once had set me free.

Then with Thy fire tame me, O my Muse.
My quill and my desire are Thine to use.

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Libertarian Shakespeare « Poetry « The ObjectOpus

This appears to be #7 in a sequence; or at the very least, a series of some kind.

Plutarch, of liberal instance, coming forth
In prose, historically reconciled
With fate, persuaded Shakespeare that more worth
Brief freedom has alive and undefiled

Than longevous disgrace enslaved. One must
Consider in accord with courage what
To do, by daily judgment deeming just
Those deeds that quicken liberty. So thought

The poet when Marcus Brutus he perused,
Not from the manly tenor of that book
Withdrawing. Civic wisdom was infused
Into his spine, which would not lightly crook

Upon consensus. Forcibly erect,
No slavish bent he’d suffer in defect.

via Poetry « The ObjectOpus.