Here's a sonnet that I thought was interesting, because it acts as a sort of bridge between older and more modern sonnet-writing: it references Petrarch and his Laura, and the "iambic bongos" of Elizabethan sonnets, yet also doesn't necessarily abide to all the codes involved in the process (no rhymes...). It's also great to how Collins is simply describing writing a sonnet, yet at the same time does just what he is talking about in his poem. (A sort of mise en abyme?)
Sonnet - Billy Collins (1941-)
All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,
and after this one just a dozen
to launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,
then only ten more left like rows of beans.
How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan
and insist the iambic bongos must be played
and rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,
one for every station of the cross.
But hang on here wile we make the turn
into the final six where all will be resolved,
where longing and heartache will find an end,
where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,
take off those crazy medieval tights,
blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.
(From Sailing Around the Room: New and Selected Poems)
I give you this one, in return, by John Keats:
ReplyDeleteOn the Sonnet
If by dull rhymes our English must be chained,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fettered, in spite of painéd loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrained,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gained
By ear industrious, and attention meet;
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay-wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.