sonnet or not

Critiques, prompts & challenges.
Post Reply
User avatar
justwalt
Posts: 895
Joined: January 28th, 2009, 4:18 pm
Location: location infers reality... reality is still a theory

sonnet or not

Post by justwalt » February 2nd, 2011, 7:44 pm

I found this poem packed away in some of my mother's stuff...
old photos, letters and such. I asked her who wrote it and who
was it given to...

She said it was written by a friend named Jazz Seever, an air force
guy stationed in Alaska, and that he wrote it to her. This would've
been written somewhere around 1963.

Questions are these...

As a sonnet, it doesn't follow the rules... is it still a sonnet?

And, did Jazz really write it, or was it copied from someone elses
works?

I'd like to post it... I'd like to name the author, Jazz, but I wouldn't
want to misrepresent it if he copied it. How would I know? Or,
should I just say, author unknown?

Sonnet to Aphrodite

What folly! Being alive without living!
Souls of driftwood cast upon the sea,
swirled to and fro by whatever life is giving
with no essence, no reason to be.

With narrowed scope and dulled senses
suspended short of all realization.
Unfelt emotion quelled by fences
of inhibition allowing no sensation.

But nay! Such shall not be my fate!
For I have tasted the nectar of love.
I have fallen to the depths of hate,
to be lifted again to the Heavens above.

On the wings of your sweet lips, having thus been filled,
how can I deflate that which love instilled?
Last edited by justwalt on March 12th, 2011, 6:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
joel
Posts: 1877
Joined: June 24th, 2005, 8:31 am
Location: Hampton Roads, Virginia

Re: sonnet or not

Post by joel » March 12th, 2011, 4:44 pm

I don't know about Jazz and/or his authorship...I wouldn't know how to do more than a google search on that...but as for being a sonnet, in my humblest opinion, this definitely is.

If a basic Elizabethan sonnet would be 14 lines of iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg...and with certain thematic goals per each stanza...then, sure, this breaks some rules in the steadfastness of meter. But isn't poetry entitled to lisence (spelling? I can almost never spell that word correctly)?

I love trying to write sonnets...mainly because they're short and anal...and without strict rules, I quickly ramble and rot. But they're just poems, and sometimes they need loosening up. Shakespeare had no problem throwing in an extra odd syllable when necessary...and the places in a sonnet (or in any regimented form) where the poem breaks free are the places where the greatest emphasis is often found. I am always happy to mess with rhyme scheme orders and enjambing rhymes and such...so I have to be gracious. But since no one else has commented, I will give it a go and opine that this is clearly sonnet, which is thine.

Jazz's sonnet reads smoothly...not in iambic pentameter, but in it's much more natural spirit. Like trying to write a genuine haiku in English...sometimes its the spirit that takes top billing over the count of syllables and accents.

All with no credentials to my name. I went to school and studied rocks.

Peace,
joel
"Every genuinely religious person is a heretic, and therefore a revolutionary" -- GBShaw

User avatar
justwalt
Posts: 895
Joined: January 28th, 2009, 4:18 pm
Location: location infers reality... reality is still a theory

Re: sonnet or not

Post by justwalt » March 12th, 2011, 10:14 pm

thanks joel... very good points...

poetic license or literary larceny,
close enough for rock and roll, but it
was probably a pick-up line(s) from a
friend of mom's when she was a semi-
regular fixture at the 5 spot cafe in the
village back in '58

Post Reply

Return to “Workshop & Prompts”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests