Poetry
Mr. Hart
Sonnet (English or Shakespearean)
The Sonnet is a traditional verse form, originally from Italy. There are two major styles of Sonnet: The
Italian, or Petrarchan sonnet (named after an Italian poet, Petrarch), or the English sonnet (sometimes
called the Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnet). The Shakespearean sonnet is made up of three fourline stanzas (called Quatrains), and one two-line stanza (called a Couplet). The rhyme pattern is ABAB
CDCD EFEF GG, and the syllable pattern has ten syllables in each line. Read the following poems and
underline or circle any words or phrases which stand out to you. Then comment on what you think the
author is saying in each poem.
Sonnet 18
by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The Facebook Sonnet
by Sherman Alexie
Welcome to the endless high-school
Reunion. Welcome to past friends
And lovers, however kind or cruel.
Let’s undervalue and unmend
The present. Why can’t we pretend
Every stage of life is the same?
Let’s exhume, resume, and extend
Childhood. Let’s play all the games
That occupy the young. Let fame
And shame intertwine. Let one’s search
For God become public domain.
Let church.com become our church
Let’s sign up, sign in, and confess
Here at the altar of loneliness.