The Making of a Poem #4: A New Year’s Sonnet

A New Year’s Sonnet
or
A sonnet in which the poet ponders writing the suddenly changed date of the new year.

For the next few weeks, upon occasion,
I will forget and believe it is last
January again. Then, scratch of pen,
The mistake corrected, proper order
Restored. But what is this renumbering?
Has one day so changed it deserves a new
Name, unique from the one before? Snowfall
Today new snow, each kiss claimed from fresh lips?
The lips of last year were pleasant enough
For a midnight kiss. The days ripped from the
Wall and scattered like the snow-buried leaves
Of every autumn, marking that midnight
Just a little farther away. Might want
To check that date, this isn’t last year. No….

You may, if you paid any attention, have noticed the lack of silly things like rhyme and meter. Yeeeaaahhh…. …. I decided not to hold myself too strictly to traditional rules for Sonnets. Poetic forms change over time, change their formal elements, change their cognitive elements, change according to new languages and cultures as they spread. I don’t think we live in the same culture and use the same language such fascinating writers as Shakespeare. Ergo, keeping to the same strictures they wrote under is somewhat silly. They had no problem adapting forms and language to suiting their needs. From the Italian, the English chose to write in iambic pentameter instead of hendecasyllables. They opted to use a different rhyme structure to accommodate the relatively rhyme-poor English. They changed the themes of the sonnet from Petrarch’s love besotted obsession to a more general use. Eliminating the volta in favor of a rhetorical couplet.

I opted to eliminate the rhyme. I don’t care much for rhyme. I removed the metrical nature of the sonnet. I used a decasyllabic form because that fits natural language better (IMO) than iambs. I returned to the Italian octave / sestet division. My sonnet pays homage to some aspects of the history of the form, but is unafraid to stand on its own formal, slouchy, untied-shoe feet. And that’s just how it’s gonna be.

January 1, 2008 · Filed Under Poem, Poetry

Comments

One Response to “The Making of a Poem #4: A New Year’s Sonnet”

  1. mariacristina on January 3rd, 2008 5:42 pm

    I like your poem. The forward movement of time is real, yet dates are very arbitrary.

    I also like your explanation of how rules for writing poetic forms change over time. We take what we want from the past. I for one don’t believe in blindly following the forms of a world i was born into, but didn’t create. I’d rather create my own world.
    Happy New Year! :P

    on a relevant note: I’ve been reading Merwin’s First Four Books and he does some interesting things with the sonnet form, eliminating the meter, keeping the rhyme, but twisting it and the cognitive elements of the form to his own purpose. I think in his third book. -tom

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