CROSS POST: new form every day... French Sonnet (day 40 of 365 poems in 365 days) - 2011-02-09 19:33

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A LONG SLOW SWEEPING THING

sadness as a constant companion
drawn into the abyss
a heart's longing to dismiss
suspended over rifts and canyons

filled with woe and feeling abandoned
on better times to reminisce
the view of perfection is amiss
unrelenting and demanding

as if all happiness one must forsake
and no forgiveness for the mistake

the wrenching burden of the chasm
filling more and more with ache
crying simply for sorrow's sake
even if unreal, a phantasm



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From: http://www.thepoetsgarret.com/list.html


French Sonnet

By the time Wyatt and Surrey introduced Petrarch to England, sonnets were popular throughout Europe, including France where a group called "Pleiade" was dedicated to importing Italian poetry.

Despite the aggression between England and France, because of the closeness of the two countries is it logical to assume that there would be a secondary source of the sonnet form imported into England and that it be via France.

Realistically apart from the 14 lines, and an octave of two quatrains there is no obvious link of the English to the Italian Forms as the internal rhymes are different, and what is proposed here is that the French Sonnet is that link. Like the Italian and the English it has an octave comprising two quatrains, but unlike the Italian and like the English it has a sestet comprised of a couplet and a quatrain and it is possible that the English sonnet was derived from the French Sonnet form and not the Italian one. The difference being that the English grouped the Quatrains together and turned (Volta) with a couplet the last two lines, but the French turned with the sestet and used the quatrain to close.

The internal rhyme is still different, but that can be attributed to the differences of the "Romance" language which has its own natural rhythm and rhyme, compared to English and the more natural did dah line rhyme just as Iambic is considered to be "English Sing Song".

The form has exactly the same quatrain as the Petrarch - a. b. b. a ... a. b. b. a.

The sestet begins with a couplet - c. c., and like the Italian sestet, we have a choice of quatrains to play with.

- d. e. e. d.
or more French, - d. c. c. d.
or more English - d. e. d. e.




PERSONAL NOTE ON THE PROCESS...
Sonnets are NOT natural for me to write AT ALL. Any rhymed form is pretty hard most of the time and this was no exception. I wrote a few lines of what I was feeling and then took the main concepts from that to pick a few words to try to rhyme with and then looked up synomyms and rhymes off the base words to try to get it all to fit together and be somewhat pretty and in my style and voice even within the form. I'm not sure I succeeded but it is what it is. As I usually do, I got the rhyming words first and then came up with the lines 2nd. I don't know how other people do it but that seems to be my modus operandi.

One thing reading these assignment poems at open mics has shown me is when I speak them in my cadence, they feel real. It's the meters that require certain accent patterns (ie Iambic) that I have a bit of trouble with.



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