#447: What if I moved the cushion out into . . .

Wouldn’t you know it? That on this ninth day of sonnetpalooza, the recommended prompt for the day on the glorious NaPoWriMo website is to write a sonnet!? Now there’s an assignment I can get behind! It’s Easter, and I feel the urge, almost a third of the way through National Poetry Writing Month, to switchContinue reading “#447: What if I moved the cushion out into . . .”

#446: I went without a drink, days: sixty-five

Welcome to day eight of sonnet mania and the effort on my part, during this most hallowed of months, National Poetry Writing Month, to write a new sonnet every day for thirty days. Before we dive in, a few introductory notes. Here’s another convention of the traditional sonnet that some readers may not be familiarContinue reading “#446: I went without a drink, days: sixty-five”

#445: We really should have seen it up ahead . . .

Day 7 of Sonnetnado!   Let’s talk about rhythm for a second. For the uninitiated, a sonnet, along with being 14 lines long and following a rhyme scheme, also follows a rhythmic structure we call iambic pentameter, which is a 10 syllable line with five accents, the stressed syllable follows the unstressed, so tapping outContinue reading “#445: We really should have seen it up ahead . . .”

#444: Don’t ask me why. I cannot meditate . . .

I think I have exhausted all of the portmanteau slang I can think of: sonnetpalooza, sonnetmageddon, sonnetpocalypse–so we’ll have to try something new. Welcome to day 6 of the festival of sonnet, a sonnet-storm of 24/7 sonnets, all sonnets, all the time. I’ve said this before–I am not a traditionalist or a formalist. I amContinue reading “#444: Don’t ask me why. I cannot meditate . . .”

#443: Of building and construction I have had . . .

The sonnetpocalypse continues on day 5 of National Poetry Writing Month. Here’s a home improvement sonnet with a dangling unrhymed couplet–because I can. Another note of interest, at least to me, is that the rhyming couplet at the end, before the dangler, uses an archaic phrase that I have always been fascinated by—the adverbial phraseContinue reading “#443: Of building and construction I have had . . .”

#442: I named my undergrad creative thesis . . .

Welcome to sonnetmageddon, day 4. Not even 1/6th of the way through the month, I have a sense of something taking shape in the way of a connective thread, beyond the repetition of this formal structure, the sonnet. Just four poems in, it might at this point be pretty oblique–so I mention it here justContinue reading “#442: I named my undergrad creative thesis . . .”

#441: The bug for travel does not sit with me . . .

Welcome to day 3 of my sonnetpalooza. All sonnets, all the time. 24 hour sonnets. I’m feeling pretty groovy about my progress. I find myself, even, a bit ahead of schedule. As of this third day, I have composed five of these babies. The jury is out about whether I will post more than oneContinue reading “#441: The bug for travel does not sit with me . . .”

#439: The poet Larry Levis said or wrote . . .

Greetings! Happy April Fool’s day. Far be it from me, though, to play a prank on you, dear reader. So, I begin today holding true to the self-challenge of writing 30 sonnets in 30 days in celebration of National Poetry Writing Month. For this first one, I have decided to be faithful to the ShakespeareanContinue reading “#439: The poet Larry Levis said or wrote . . .”