I believe…
I don’t believe…
Closed Form
• 14 lines
• iambic pentameter
• rhyme scheme
• usually about love
Iambic Pentameter
• 10 syllables per line
• five iambs in a row
• unstressed syllable followed by a
stressed syllable (  / )

/

/

/  /

/
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Iambic Pentameter
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heav'n, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Iambic Pentameter
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
1 2
3 4
5
6
7
8
9
10
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Iambic Pentameter
(  / )
unstressed
stressed
Iambic Pentameter
Avoid WRENCHED accents
(  / )
TO DAY 
IF
I 
REFUSE 
SWIMMING 
Iambic Pentameter
A WRENCHED ACCENT is...
An alteration in the customary
pronunciation of a word, that is, a
shift in word accent, to
accommodate the metrical accent in
a line of verse.
swimMING 
 SWIMming
Iambic Pentameter
WRENCHED ACCENT
In English...
ALL suffixes are UNSTRESSED
ly ed er ing es
ness tion +all the rest
Rhyme Scheme
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heav'n, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
a
b
a
b
c
d
c
d
e
f
e
f
g
g
Rhyme Scheme
a
b
a
b Shakespearean
c
Sonnet
d
c (English Sonnet)
d
e
f
e
f
g
g
a
b
b
a
a
b
b
a
c
d
c
d
c
d
a
b
b
aPetrarchan
a Sonnet
b
b(Italian Sonnet)
a
c
d
e
c
d
e
Rhyme Scheme
a
b
a
b Spenserian
b
Sonnet
c
b
c
c
d
c
d
e
e
a
b
a
b
c
c
d
d
e
f
f
e
g
g
Pushkin
Sonnet
Can be read either as a
variation of the Italian form
(two quatrains plus two
tercets) or as the English
form (three quatrains plus a
closing couplet).
Rhyme Scheme
a
b
a
b
c
d
c
d
e
f
e
f
g
g
Shakespearean
Sonnet
(English Sonnet)
3 quatrains +
1 couplet
TURN (volta)
Rhyme Scheme
a
b
b
a
a
b
b
a
c
d
c
d
c
d
a
b
b
a
a
b
b
a
c
d
e
c
d
e
Petrarchan
Sonnet
(Italian Sonnet)
1 octave (8 lines) +
1 sestet (6 lines)
(or 2 tercets)
TURN (volta)
Rhyme Scheme
Shakespearean Sonnet
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heav'n, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
a
b
a
b
c
d
c
d
e
f
e
f
g
g
Rhyme Scheme
Shakespearean Sonnet
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 dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
a
b
a
b
c
d
c
d
e
f
e
f
g
g
GOT LOST
by Kevin Cawley
Maybe you were feeling overtired,
your caginess which signalled Go away
a temporary choreography,
the pas de deux of dissonance required
in all Romantic dances, interplay
of tensions that eventually relent,
relax into an amiable cliche,
the clinch unclenching, all dissention spent.
More likely, though, you never cared to dance,
would rather not interpret every gesture
as narrative development. Romance
considers each new setback on the quest
as one more wonder in a grand ballet.
But you more likely mean what your actions say.
Form of Choice
By A.P.
The limerick is poetry base and vile,
The haiku does not much improve upon it.
Though free verse may be currently in style,
It cannot match the beauty of the sonnet.
I cannot stand the ode or villanelle,
Of epigrams and dirges I am sick.
All other metric feet can go to hell,
The meter of the heavens is iambic.
The scansion of a sonnet is delight,
I'd do it 'till the act had greyed my hairs.
For nothing in this world can match the sight
Of mora and morae in endless pairs.
(A note to Mr. Bow'ring: when you check this,
I ask you overlook the hypermetrics.)
We’ll be friends forever, won’t we
by S.S.
In brief: we may be young but we are dead.
We hold our breath for those old living days.
And so we sleep, leaving the words unsaid
That burn like wounds undressed, as we decay.
Don’t you remember? Great minds thought alike!
Betwixt those toxic looks I stayed devout.
A surgery, done in the dead of night,
Forced truth, which we denied, and cut you out.
We are the scar that never seems to heal.
The stitches rip apart when ‘er we meet,
And I grope through your eyes for something real.
Despair, a cut reopened – bittersweet.
Know I will find a time to use my lungs.
In brief: we may be dead, but we are young.
The Sonnet
- closed form - strict adherence to the rules
- 14 lines
- iambic pentameter
- rhyme scheme
- usually about love
Now you try
Choose one of your free write images from
our warm ups last week and try weaving it
into a sonnet.
Think: Who speaks? Who is the ‘listener’?
What varied points of view could you show?
How will this sonnet ‘turn’?
To Burning Dew
by A.A.
There’s something about a burning fire,
about the crackle of a heated storm.
There’s a sort of longing, strong desire
to burn the time of my frustrations; torn
between the evils that preach, I have sworn
not to please the distaste, this distasteful chore.
Call it what you will, but this fire will burn,
‘til the golden dews dry up and burn no more.
There’s something about a burning fire I adore;
The constant heat, flicker and fate,
the awful taste that sets me to soar
above -- then landing slowly in a terrific distaste.
There’s something about a constant burn,
an anxious chorus in an unsuspecting turn.