88º ~ feels like 100º ~ 50% chance of pop-up thunderstorms, yesterday the rain missed us by less than five miles ~ we wallow
Those of you that follow my work know that I'm no formalist. Sure, I love sound and pattern, and I use a lot of slant rhyme with healthy doses of alliteration, assonance, and consonance thrown in for good measure, but I am loathe to count lines or otherwise restrain myself. So, what's a poet to do when suddenly the drafts start coming out in form? Well, blame Shakespeare, of course.
My most recent post mentioned my re-reading of King Lear, and this morning, I spent some time with my BIC (butt in chair), re-reading the quotes I'd copied out. Yes, I already underlined and otherwise added new annotations to the text, but I also kept a running list of quotes on scratch paper, given that the Riverside doesn't lend itself to easy use, what with its great heft.
In Act IV, scene ii, Albany asks of Goneril and Regan (Lear's two oldest daughters), "Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform'd?" This line became the beginning of my draft today, although altered. The title of the draft was easy, given what should be my natural place (Cordelia) is far from the truth. So:
I am No Cordelia
Tigers, not daughters, what we have perform'd
is this. Our father was no Lear, no proud king
So, the draft kind of just fell out of me after that, and I let it all come out in handwriting in my journal. Starting with a Shakespearean line, I shouldn't be surprised that the lines came out in five and six stresses, but I promise I wasn't consciously thinking of this. Imagine my surprise when I went to the computer and typed up the draft and it was not only 14 lines long but also ended with a rhyming couplet. Ack!
I should clarify that the draft is in no way a perfect Shakespearean sonnet. It lacks a clean rhyme scheme, and I haven't scanned each line to work out the iambic pentameter (oooo, shudder). So now I have to decide if the draft requires this. It is definitely a poem of allusion, so, will the reader expect it to fall into that "proper" sonnet form?
Any thoughts on the subject are welcome.
4 comments:
I suggest trying to put it in proper sonnet format--even if it can't be done, I always learn something interesting when I try (I, too, am no formalist--but sometimes I wonder if part of the reason for that is laziness on my part).
Thanks, K!
Sorry to be late in commting, Sandy. I can't bring myself to worry about meter when I write sonnets. That's just beyond the pale. I'm not even certain that one should fret about a rhyme pattern, although arguably without a rhyme pattern the poem is simply a 14 line poem, not a sonnet. Arguably. Not sure I agree with that. You are WAY MORE OF A POET than I can ever dream of being, but with rhyme patterns I find the true fun in trying to hide them as deeply as possibly. And usually that means abandoning end rhyme altogether. Sounds like you trend that way anyway.
Thanks, John!
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