Wonderful times, the feeling must not end,
And yet it does, regret, pain and sorrow,
Some hope remains that he will be my friend.
Love stays, no matter what strength you borrow.
Life goes on, still memory does remain.
A wish to repeat what has once ocurred
A wish that is so deep you go insane.
A wish not just insane but quite absurd.
Some day new love is found and suddenly,
The joy, delight and pride can start once more.
A new life begun, without a hint of misery,
And never again will that heart be sore.
Love's uncontrollable, tough and endless,
Enjoy it and simply say out loud: YES!
This is a strong, confident sonnet. Sonnets often have the feel of developing an argument – they're little pieces of rhetoric – and yours definitely has this. I loved the joyous punch of the ending! That shift in rhyme scheme really emphasises the 'YES!' There are just a couple of technical slips: a tiny quirk on line five (short a beat, if it's 'MEM-ry'; arrhythmic, if it's 'MEM-o-RY'), and too many syllables on line eleven. So not quite perfect – but I feel that perfection is well within your grasp :)
ReplyDeleteWe don't really need to discuss the technical aspects of this poem any longer; instead I'd like to focus on its content. You're dealing in very abstract concepts – 'regret', 'pain, 'sorrow', 'hope' – that don't have a physical referrent in the real world. By 'referrent', I mean the “thing” that the word – that arbitrary combination of lines and dashes – refers to. So, the referrent of 'Yorkshire curd tart' is one of these: http://tinyurl.com/663zx7k
But what does 'love' refer to? You can't take a photo of love – and this is where imagery comes in. Imagery – similes and metaphors and so on – translate abstract concepts into something physical and tactile, something that reader can understand. As such, imagery is one way to make your poem more resonant with your readership. Next time, I would love to see what you come up with when experimenting with imagery! Great stuff here – keep it up.
Now craving a Yorkshire curd tart,
Sarah
Hi,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I apologise for taking so long to get back to you on your work, especially as you've done such a good job of it. I'm sorry for any anxiety that may have caused, and I'm really happy to see your work again now.
Happy because yet again you've shown a brilliant talent for the task. This is a great sonnet, and one that, as Sarah said, has a brilliant grounding in tradition rhetoric, but also a real originality with that ending. I really like it, and I hope you deserve to be proud.
'Life goes on stil memory does remain' is one of my favourite lines in the whole thing. It sums up so much of the way it feels to live in our minds as well as in 'real' time. I'd love to see what you'd make of that subject at length - the idea of the past, present and imagined future all existing at once.
There's the odd bit where the lines seem faintly old-fashioned, as with 'does remain' which is something that's easy to fall into the iambs. They just sound so good when they're not in crisp, modern English. However, you should try to write with the voice of the age you live in unless it's a deliberate effect as much as possible. Otherwise things can get to be archaic.
That's more of a warning that a criticism though - there was nothing here that got in the way of my enjoyment of it. Well done, and looking forward to seeing of what you'll make of crime fiction.
Take care,
Andy
Thank you both again :)
ReplyDeleteSarah, I think you are completely right with your comment about imagery, I myself think that imagery I often struggle with. I hope I can improve on that in the next task!
Andy, I also noticed that sometimes I seem to talk in a different "voice" than usual, and I'll also try to change that in the next task.
Enjoy the weekend!