I’m revising and transcribing poems from my April Poem a Day notebook onto my computer to send out. The prompt for Day Fourteen was “A Sonnet”.
I don’t love sonnets, I find iambic pentameter awkward and just not my favourite. That being said, I’ve written a couple I was pretty pleased with… but not this April. The top of my page for that day says “Day Fourteen — A Sonnet” It is then followed by two and a half pages of things that have been written and then scribbled out. And then, finally, the poem I ended up with this:
Fuck It
I’m supposed to write a sonnet
but my pen doesn’t know how.
It keeps inking haiku,
limericks and jokes (low-brow).I’m supposed to write a sonnet,
that is fourteen lines long
but all of my rhymes
are far too sing-song.I’m supposed to write a sonnet
minding rhythm and feet
but it’s not going to happen
so I might as well cheat.I’m supposed to write a sonnet,
but I wrote this instead.
It made me lawl so I thought I’d share it. I hope no one was offended by the profanity.
Ya know, one day I’m going to self-pub a book full of my bad poetry and give it away. Just for the hell of it.
I love it, profanity included.
Bwa ha ha! On the days when PAD asked for structured poems, I always added a note at the top of my word doc along the lines of: “sonnet–no, screw it, I’m doing this [other prompt] instead.”
I’d then look up old prompts on NanoLJers or Poetic Asides.
We’re rebels together!
Best blog post title ever. Most amusing – I know what you mean. I’ve written (I feel I should say “penned”) a few sonnets but they can so easily slip into sing-song. It’s good to play around with the form, I think.