Sonnets

Grandparents Day has been an official national holiday since 1978. It is always celebrated on the first Sunday after Labor Day which falls on September 11, this year. The US isn’t the only country that honors grandparents with a special holiday, but it falls on different dates, depending on the country. Gifts and cards are appropriate on Grandparents Day and retailers and greeting card companies are reminding us of this as I write. SPUNKY GRANDMAS…And Other Amusing Characters makes a great gift for this occasion, especially for a grandmother who likes a good laugh, and what grandma wouldn’t be flattered to think the gift giver associates her with the word, “spunky?

I’ve been asked if I will write another book to follow SPUNKY GRANDMAS….And Other Amusing Characters. My answer is, “I may have already written it. “

I’ve written about 200 sonnets. ( Fun fact: Shakespeare only wrote 154. ) About 100 are included in SPUNKY GRANDMAS, so there are about 100 more laying around ready to go into another book. All look for humor in human behavior and in the world in which we live.

What’s distinctive about the SPUNKY GRANDMAS sonnets is that nearly all have a narrator who tells a story with one or more characters and a plot that gets resolved. While there are similar stories among the rest, many tend to be observations and comments, not in story form. For example, there’s sonnet entitled “Coffee Snobs” and one called “Supermarket Tabloids.” Both are mildly satiric commentaries.

Another entitled “In Praise of Duct Tape” is posted on the Favorites page of this website.

I have never written a sonnet I considered finished when I completed the first version. I like to get 14 lines down as quickly as I can, but I know that’s just the beginning of a process that might not end for weeks or months, maybe even years.

Usually the next day will bring several changes, seemingly the result of mysterious, subliminal thought percolation that somehow occurs overnight. I can’t explain it. It just happens. If I look at it again a week later, I’ll usually find other changes I want to make.

At that point, it might be pretty close to as good as it’s going to get. That’s when I decide if I really like it or not. If I’m not satisfied, I’ll just forget about it for a while and lay fresh eyes on it weeks or months later. That doesn’t always work and some just never get to where I can feel proud of them. Even the ones I am happy with often get tweaked if I later take a fresh look.

The only thing that quells the urge to continuously review and revise is to publish something. That seems to add some finality to what might otherwise be a never ending process.

When I’m stumped for a rhyming word, a synonym or a definition, my go-to website is www.rhymezone.com. I go there a lot. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever written a sonnet without consulting this excellent source.

I never drive anywhere without the radio on, and I usually pay attention to song lyrics. I hear plenty of near rhymes in songs which seem to be perfectly acceptable to listeners. But I am a stickler for using only exact rhymes in my sonnets, and that makes the process a lot more challenging (and fun, as far as I’m concerned).

I also cringe anytime I hear lyrics where the songwriter has obviously “stretched” to find a rhyme. I always ask myself if the rhyming words in my sonnets truly advance the story or message or is a word there only because it rhymes. In such cases, I need to find a better rhyming word. Rhymezone often solves the problem.

But sometimes it doesn’t. In that case, I look at synonyms. If I can find a word that means the same as the word for which I can’t find a suitable rhyme, Im half way there. Then I just need to find a good rhyming word for my new word. Persistence and Rhymezone usually bring me to the desired result.

I marvel at rhyming poets from long ago who wrote great poems without the benefit of a resource like Rhymezone. I wouldn’t want to try writing sonnets without it.

The simplest answer is a 14 line poem. It can be about any topic. But if it doesn’t have exactly 14 lines, it isn’t a sonnet. Traditionally, sonnets have followed other “rules” besides the 14 line rule.

Traditional sonnets must have some type of rhyme pattern. I write mine in the Shakespearian Sonnet form. That means the first line rhymes with the third, the second with the fourth, the fifth with the seventh, the sixth with the eighth, the ninth with the eleventh, the tenth with the twelfth, and the thirteenth with the fourteenth. Some sonneteers might use different rhyme patterns, but a rhyme scheme of some type is one of the defining characteristics of a traditional sonnet.

Another characteristic is some type of rhythmic structure, commonly called meter (or metre if you’re British). That means arranging the words so there is a rhythmic alternation of emphasis on the syllables within those words. In the Shakespearian form the meter is called iambic and puts the emphasis on every other syllable ( ta-tum, ta-tum ta-tum ta-tum ta-tum). Notice you just saw 5 ta-tums. When you have exactly 5 of those in each line, it’s called iambic pentameter, another Shakespearian sonnet characteristic.

Still another element of the sonnet is a shift in direction that takes place at line #9. The first 8 lines might introduce a topic or problem that gets clarified or resolved in the last 6 lines. The last 2 lines are what count the most. They might be a summation or a punchline, but the highlight of any good sonnet is what’s said in the final two lines.

Even Shakespeare didn’t always follow all the rules, and some very good sonnets ignore most of them, but they all have exactly 14 lines or it’s not a sonnet.