Sonnet Space

Cataract

We are being pulled into the future.
I mean that the future really exists,
Like a cataract that pulls the current
Far upstream where we drift lazily and,

Unaware of the rapids and boulders,
We think the river will always consist
Of this easy glide. As a deterrent
We could beach ourselves, resting on the sand.

But for most of us stasis is torture
And it's difficult for us to resist
The river's song or to hear the torrent,
As if on moving water we could stand.

The future, in a way, is not unknown --
Over the falls, into the sea, the river flows.

Sonnets have a reputation for being serious. I have found, though, that there are light verse sonnets, humorous sonnets, and occasional sonnets on a variety of everyday concerns. So I thought I would share a sonnet in a lighter mood:


On Crackers

At times I think about some useless things;
For example, who invented crackers?
The crisp wafer has brought many blessings,
It's the perfect food for slackers
Like me who do not really like to cook.

When I'm in a hurry with lots to do,
No worries, I just check the shelf and look
For a box of crackers and start to chew
On the firm, flat, unleavened, lovely bread.

They're the perfect platform for cheese or jam,
The combination makes me feel well fed
And I can find them aywhere I am.

To whoever started crackers, I bow.
I think I'll have a few of them right now.

Returning to a more serious tone, here's a sonnet I wrote a few years ago:

On Old Age

After sixty years one is less agile
And most ev'ryone is younger than you;
They tend to treat you as extra fragile,
Which is a good thing because it is true.

Time becomes more amorphous and less rushed
(Was it three, or perhaps ten years ago?)
And so one speaks less and one's tones are hushed,
Unsure, remote, hesitant, kind of slow.

It is the time of life to go within,
To break free of all of the commotion,
To become quiet, to escape the din,
To ride the ebb-tide into the ocean.

It is the time of sunset and return,
When all the ties to this sad world are burned.

One of the pleasures of reading sonnets is discovering a poet I was not previously familiar with and who has penned an elegant, thoughtful, and well-crafted poem. A few years ago I came across a sonnet by Charlotte Smith, who wrote in the late 1700's. I was not familiar with her. The sonnet appeared in the anthology 'The Art of the Sonnet' by Stephen Burt and David Mikics. Her sonnet really struck me and led me to explore more of her work.


Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore,
Night o'er the ocean settles, dark and mute,
Save where is heard the repercussive roar
Of drowsy billows, on the rugged foot
Of rocks remote; or still more distant tone
Of seamen, in the anchored bark, that tell
The watch reliev'd; or one deep voice alone,
Singing the hour, and bidding "strike the bell."
All is black shadow, but the lucid line
Mark'd by the light surf on the level sand,
Or where afar, the ship-lights faintly shine
Like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land
Mislead the pilgrim; such the dubious ray
That wavering reason lends, in life's long darkling way.

Charlotte Smith -- 1798


Comment: I love the way the imagery pulls you in, how the long vowels of the first line create an emotional effect that is in sync with the description. And little touches like the alliteration of 'repercussive roar' and 'rocks remote' adds to the overall sonicscape of the sonnet. I also admire how Smith uses the senses; the visual imagery is striking and paints a scene, and this, combined with the sonic elements like 'roar', and 'bell', draw the reader into the scene.

Smith places the turn, or volta, in the middle of the penultimate line, separated by a semi-colon. All of a sudden she uses the image from the first 13-1/2 lines to create a striking metaphor, comparing the deceptive fairy fires to 'wavering reason', and comparing the dark landscape to 'life's long darkling way'. There is so much packed into that last 1-1/2 lines that it really stays with you and gives the reader a lot to contemplate. This has become one of my favorite sonnets.

One of the pleasures of composing a sonnet is the sense of joining a community of poets. This community consists of other sonnet writers, both past and present, and, at least potentialy, those in the future. When I compose a sonnet I feel like I am engaged in a conversation with these other poets. That isn't always comfortable as some of the members are kind of opinionated and overpowering. But most of the time the community feels very supportive.

The earliest member of this community, the member who is thought of as both introducing and establishing the sonnet as an English language form, is Thomas Wyatt, who lived from 1503 to 1542. He was a member of the court of Henry VIII. That was a very dangerous environment and Wyatt's poetry reflects the tensions of a court where one false word, one whispered accusation, could cause you to lose favor with Henry and Henry had a pension for beheading those he viewed as enemies. In fact, Wyatt was arrested, along with numerous other men, when Ann Bolyn was charged with adultery. Wyatt was accused of adulterous relations with Ann. Oddly, he wasn't executed, but released for lack of evidence (though lack of evidence never stood in Henry's way). Perhaps it was Wyatt's powerful family which saved him at that time.

When Richard Denner last visited, in December of 2013, I had conversations with him about poetry and we discovered that we both had a fondness and enthusiasm for Wyatt's poetry. What we both responded to was the tension and the way the careful crafting often generated friction with the theme that was being put forth. Denner and I write very different styles, so it was a pleasure to find this commonality between us.

Wyatt never collected or published his poetry; perhaps because it was too dangerous (some of his poems are obviously coded) or perhaps because he died too young (of natural causes). His poetry was circulated among friends and other poets and was later collected. Here is one of his sonnets:

A Renouncing of Love

Farewell, Love, and all thy laws for ever;
Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more:
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore,
To perfect wealth, my wit for to endeavour;
In blind errour when I did persever,
Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,
Taught me in trifles that I set no store;
But 'scaped forth thence, since liberty is lever:
Therefore, farewell, go trouble younger hearts,
And in me claim no more authority;
With idle youth go use thy property,
And thereon spend thy many brittle darts:

For, hitherto though I have lost my time,
Me list no longer rotten boughs to clime.


**

Notes: 'lever': dearer, 'property': power or quality

Another Sonnet from Thomas Wyatt:


I find no peace, and all my war is done:
I fear, and hope; I burn, and freeze like ice;
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I seize on;
That locketh nor loseth holdeth me in prison,
And holdeth me not, yet can I 'scape nowise:
Nor letteth me live, nor die at my devise,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eyen I see, and without tongue I 'plain;
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health;
I love another, and thus I hate myself;
I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain.
Likewise displeaseth me both death and life,
And my delight is causer of this strife.


Comments:

I am struck by Wyatt’s free-flowing lineation. Wyatt’s sonnets do not adhere to a strictly iambic construction. And the syllable count is surprisingly varied; lines 3, 5, and 12 are twelve syllables, while lines 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 are eleven syllables. That leaves lines 1, 2, 13, and 14 for ten syllables; a remarkably varied presentation. His use of iambics is equally fluid. I like the way Wyatt will sometimes start a line with an ambiguous accentual shape, and then close it with a strong iambic series. Lines 11 & 12 are a good example; each opening clause is rhythmically complex and fluid, then, after the comma, there is a series of cadential iambics to close the line.

Wyatt may have been influenced directly by the Italian sonnet here. The Italian sonnet was eleven syllables per line, and it was structured syllabically rather than accentually. I’m not sure, but I sense the fluidity of a syllabic approach being mapped onto English; there is a kind of rocking back and forth between iambic clauses and clauses that are much looser. This makes the sonnet sound like you are actually hearing someone speak; it gives the sonnet a sense of spontaneity.

A more general comment has to do with Wyatt’s love sonnets as a whole. For Wyatt love is a disaster, or it leads to disaster. For Wyatt love is unrequited and dangerous. Wyatt’s immediate followers will write sonnet sequences that idealize love and their beloved. So I find it all the more intriguing that here, at the beginning of the English sonnet, Wyatt presents love in a more stark and complicated way.

It's the 450th birthday of Shakespeare, so what more appropriate date to post one of the great bard's sonnets! Shakesepeare's sonnets are some of the finest poetry written in the English language; the rhythm, images, thoughtfulness, passion, and insight are compelling. And their mysterious subject (that is to say the persons to whom they were written) has been a constant source of speculation down through the centuries.

Here I would like to post an unusual example of Shakespeare's sublime skill. Though Shakespeare's sonnets are well known, less often commented on are the sonnets Shakespeare would, now and then, weave into his plays. Here I want to post a sonnet which appears in Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5. It takes the form of a dialogue between the central characters, Romeo and Juliet:


ROMEO:

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET:

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

ROMEO:

Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET

Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO:

O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET:

Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

ROMEO:

Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.


Comment: A perfect sonnet, a perfect scene, a graceful dialogue, shaped by the yearning of young love.

It's been some time since I posted to the Sonnet Space thread. I plead busy; I'm working a lot and most of my free time is focused on a book I'm writing.

When I posted the sonnet from Romeo and Juliet I wanted to follow up with one of Shakespeare's sonnets from his sonnet collection. The problem I ran into is that there are so many excellent sonnets found there that I really had trouble picking one over the others. So many of them are so well done I found it difficult to select. But here goes: here is Sonnet 29, a sonnet to return to over and over:


Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare

When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


Comment: The way this sonnet flows from its first word to its closing line, flowing like a clear mountain brook, flowing like a beautiful song, with a pulse and current that carries you along is truly awesome. The sonnet is a single sentence and that helps give the sonnet a sense of unity. The first four lines depict the depressed state of the individual who feels disgraced, alone, troubled, etc. Lines 5-8 compare the unfortunate circumstances of the writer to others, a strategy we are all familiar with and one that never fails to increase our sense of worthlessness. Lines 9-12 contain the turn away from the depression and show us a way out of the dead end of despondency; namely, friendship, love, and in genearal intimate association with someone else, a special someone else. When we recall these kinds of relationships the despondency disperses.

Sonnet 29 is a demonstration of the value of intimate relationships and how they serve to assist us in our lives by counteracting our tendency to criticize ourselves and diminish ourselves. The sonnet refers to the other person's 'sweet love rememb'red'. When I read this line, though, I often think of longterm friends, or relatives, or colleagues, as well as specifically lovers. I think the sonnet has a broad scope and applies to those with whom we have shared our lives and, in general, those we have grown to trust over a long period of time, those with whom we have become transparent. What the sonnet points to is that wonderful experience we have all had of being lifted up by the knowing and understanding presence of someone else who accepts us, in spite of our flaws. This is a profound insight into the value of these kinds of associations, into the nature of the human condition, written in perfect lines, gracious rhyme, and nourishing metaphors. A truly inspiring poem.