7.16.15

The sonnet is maybe one of the most well-known poetic forms. It has a lot of baggage, erm, connotations too.

Wikipedia says it originated in Italy, etymologically it originated in song, or the Latin sonus. Connected heavily with images of chivalric and courtly love, its well-known form was somewhat cemented in the medieval era. This is pretty sexy:

The structure of a typical Italian sonnet of the time included two parts that together formed a compact form of "argument". First, the octave (two quatrains), forms the "proposition", which describes a "problem", or "question", followed by a sestet (two tercets), which proposes a "resolution". Typically, the ninth line initiates what is called the "turn", or "volta", which signals the move from proposition to resolution. Even in sonnets that don't strictly follow the problem/resolution structure, the ninth line still often marks a "turn" by signaling a change in the tone, mood, or stance of the poem

I like sonnets, they're fun to learn and I think they take skill to do well. They're also fun to tilt and play with, as many have done. (Form is always fun to splash around in, it gives your ideas a little hand up).  Here are some for you. This first one is a double-whammy. I love Spanish, and don't get to use this kind very often. Does this count as using my degree?


Stammering translated sonnet in which the poet sends the rains of Havana to her love in New York


By Suzanne Gardinier

Got your message, here
in the letter you didn’t write:
burned, with a forbidden seal,
marking the burial site
of what has neither voice nor definition,
what has no face, no peace, no place to sleep,
a whisper in which I can’t [inaudible]
—what the sea doesn’t say, whispering, every night,
and when the rain comes to erase the streets
tomorrow, & all the dusks that follow that,
and runs around making up street dances
from what you once said, I’ll have this map,
without details, made of what I’ve missed,
telling me that that which isn’t is.

Spanish:

Soneto Balbuciendo En Que La Poeta Manda A Su Amor En Nueva York La Lluvia de La Habana

He leído el mensaje que mandaste,
aquí, en la carta no me has escrito:
quemada, y con sello prohibido,
diciéndome dónde enterraste
lo que no tiene voz ni luz ni cara,
ni paz, ni un lugar para dormir,
susurro donde yo puedo oír
cada noche lo que no dice el mar,
y cuando la lluvia borrará las calles
mañana, y los crepúsculos después,
y correrá haciendo bailes
de lo que me dijiste una vez,
yo tendré este mapa, sin detalles,
que me dice que lo que no es, es.

mmmmm. This second one is also about sensations, natural ones, but of a slightly different type (in some ways):

Stridulation Sonnet

Jessica Jacobs

Tiger beetles, crickets, velvet ants, all
know the useful friction of part on part,
how rub of wing to leg, plectrum to file,
marks territories, summons mates. How

a lip rasped over finely tined ridges can
play sweet as a needle on vinyl. But
sometimes a lone body is insufficient.
So the sapsucker drums chimney flashing

for our amped-up morning reveille. Or,
later, home again, the wind’s papery
come hither through the locust leaves. The roof
arcing its tin back to meet the rain.

The bed’s soft creak as I roll to my side.

What sounds will your body make against mine?