Sonnets

We have been studying sonnets which for those who have forgotten high school lit class are 14-line poems with ten syllables in each line. They're fun to write in the sense that it is like working a puzzle. You have a designated rhyme scheme that has to be met depending on the type of sonnet that it is (Shakespearean, Italian, Spenserian, etc)...So you have to make what you want to say work within that scheme. As a writer of free-form I find it frustrating on the one hand to have what I want to communicate come together in a beautiful phrase only to learn that it doesn't fit. On the other hand it's fun because it makes you think and challenges your creativity - to still say what you want to say within the meter without losing the flow and cadence that you have in your head. I do prefer free form but here are my two sonnets so far. Remember I am new at this... :)

The first one was inspired by a recent news headline. The second is pretty self explanatory.

Police found the moonshine
Shakespearean Sonnet
scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

Police found the moonshine in my pot patch
And I thought I had it hidden so well.
I put it in a box with brass key and latch
Below the ivy that is poison I tell.
Was it Bob? Was it Ben? Or dear Auntie Em?
Who would think to do harm to little me?
The whole town it craves this drinkable gem
To go with a puff of that greenery.
Bob is a hard man with no sense of fun.
Ben never liked me since I did move in
Em she means well but once was a nun
Each of them's after the world and its sin
Repentance is due - humbly I must think
As soon as the law is done with their drink.

-Helen Luther
6-19-10

Papa Told Me
Occitan Sonnet
abab abab cdcdcd

Papa God told me that you're really real
Even the times I may think it too good
That in this scared heart your love he would seal.
My hope is to give you all that I should.
Not something store bought or just a good meal
Though these things are fine and I surely could
What I most want, what I most deeply feel
Is I give you all that makes your life good.

Whatever that is, whatever you need
Love, joy and kindness– things of the Spirit
Who gave you to me and helped me be free.
I'll share things with you that no other's fit
Because I trust you in word and in deed
Guess Papa knows best which hearts ought be knit.

-Helen Luther
6-21-10


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