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Falling into Form

© Kay Day

I wanted to write a very personal poem. After thinking about it, I realized the perfect container was the sonnet. I had no idea of the repercussions.

I approached writing my first real sonnet with some timidity. I still had one rhyme scheme in my ear-abbaabba cdecde-courtesy of studying prosody under poet James Dickey in his early teaching years. I'd written in free verse for most of my adult life; the entire body of my published work was in free verse.

So why did I feel the need to explore an Italian sonnet? Part of my reasons involved the recipient of this poem. I wanted to write it for my husband, to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The word, sonnet, comes from the Italian word, sonetto, or "little song." Many others had chosen a version of this form to express feelings. Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats, and, of course, Yeats, are among my favorite poets. To my way of thinking, a "little song" was exactly what I wanted to write.

My approach wasn't even to write the best sonnet I could write, as far as poetics are concerned. My intent was to write something that would speak what was in my heart. If others enjoyed it, so much the better. I did, however, want it to be a respectable sonnet.

After going through a number of legal pads, and using all the scrap paper I could find, a sonnet began to form on paper. I realized immediately how clumsy I'd become with form, any form, and this state was compounded by the fact that I wanted to go by exact standards. After all, I had no experience with sonnets. I didn't feel that I deserved to amend form, not yet anyway. I searched, and found some admittedly dated theory relating to the English sonnet by T. W. H. Crosland (1917) at The Canon. A well-known poet whose work I very much respect, and who would, no doubt, be embarrassed if I named her here, laughed at me for taking such theory to heart.

Normally, I wouldn't. But after studying Crosland's theory, I figured if I could write a sonnet within his parameters, I could write in any form I wanted to. Crosland was positively myopic. He spoke sternly across the decades, by admonishing, "Words ending in "ty," "ly," and "cy" must not be used as rhymes whether in octet (first eight lines) or sestet(last six lines)."