write a sonnet

I have actually written sonnets before, in college, so I suppose I’ve already done this goal. My intent behind adopting this goal, though, is that I desire to write a sonnet as an adult, willingly, not because it is a classroom assignment.

jkbn

So far I’ve found three sonnets that I’ve written already. The first was for a class in middle school, two more randomly afterwards. Hopefully I’ll write another soon.

The sonnet is a most excellent form to study. There is a huge number of different rhyme schemes and meters you can play with. Fourteen lines is enough to deal with a quite complex and interesting theme. Got a longer story to tell? Write a sonnet sequence.

I used to write a lot of poetry. Then one day, many years ago, I read about Rilke’s feat of writing a large number of sonnets in a short time period. I challenged my sister, who also wrote poetry, to a competition, to see whether we could each write 25 sonnets in a weekend.

I managed it, and it was probably the best material I ever wrote. But I have hardly written anything since(!). She didn’t complete her 25, but did go on to have a sequence of 50 published later. So she won, really!

It’s done…now to post it! Deep breath…

huge scatterbrain…so this is a definite challenge! Right now I’m on the first quatrain, and I keep re-writing it! I chose to write a Spenserian sonnet, which is a little more flowing, I think. I love Shakespeare, but I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole! HA!

This is a haiku.
Sonnets take too long to write.
Short attention span.