Personal Challenge Number Three!

Hello, dear Toads, and welcome to Personal Challenge Post Number Three. My challenge was provided by Grace/Heaven, and despite its relative simplicity, I managed to muck it up, as you’ll see below. But welcome to my post, in all its convoluted glory.

Grace’s challenge was for me to write two poems, in sonnet or cinquain form. I’ll spoil this right up front and tell you that I ended up writing three sonnets. (Argh.) You might remember that I wrote cinquains with great fury a while back, and I seem to have burnt myself out on the form. Plus, I find sonnets extremely challenging, so I figured I should really take on Grace’s challenge for what it is: CHALLENGE. Sonnets!

For the first poem, Grace asked me to choose among the recent work of a fellow Toad (as Michael/Grapeling has previously challenged her), and write a response that may be totally different or showing a different point of view. I decided to respond to a poem by dear Susie Clevenger that particularly struck me. Susie’s poem is called Fist Held Verses. Please click through and read Susie's wonderful, inspiring poem. My response is a Kyrielle sonnet:

She Wishes to Loosen the Verse-Grip

Now that you’ve fairly exorcised

every Demon courting you last

night, last week, or yesterday’s lies,

as if your Verses could surpass

The reality of your Truth,

virtue spilled on the page, forecast

cold with a chance of where-are-you

in the simpler Time just gone past

Your prime, your Words resonating

but flying, coming very fast,

sketchily approximating

the Saddest years, already passed

Like yesteryear’s iconoclast,

you stay stuck, scribbling down the Past.

The second part of Grace’s challenge was for me to use the title of the poem Metamorphosis by Sylvia Plath or get inspiration from her work to write a response. Here is where I messed up: though Grace helpfully provided me with a link to the poem to which she wanted me to respond, I unhelpfully did not notice said link, and responded to a wholly different poem. Did you know that Sylvia Plath has TWO poems with "metamorphosis/es" in the title? Well, now you do.

So I wrote another Kyrielle sonnet for poem number two, responding to the very beautiful poem Metamorphoses of the Moon by Sylvia Plath:

For Sylvia, By Moon-Light

In a wish for barren Night

or light or want of foresight,

unbelieving she’d be seen

between the Moon and a dream,

Unleashed, her callous fervor

set lust against lust once more,

but more is not what it seems

when begging the Moon for dreams.

Too soon her spit uncovers,

flits away from Light, lovers

& Night indulgence to breathe

where the dampish Moon meets dreams--

She might wish for simple dreams,

but Moon-dreams aren’t how they seem.

(Actually, the above poem has seven-syllable lines and the Kyrielle requires eight. I claim poetic license.)

Thinking I was all finished, I was reviewing Grace’s challenge over the weekend and discovered her link, to a different poem. Eek! So, I decided it was my own tough luck and wrote a third Kyrielle sonnet, responding to the poem Metamorphosis by Sylvia Plath, as Grace intended:

Unspeakable Pleasure

& In the longest, coldest month,

you’d assume sustenance within,

but she relied on amaranth

to absolve her plentiful sins--

If frozen Heart, still immortal,

caught wind of any beats human,

it lunged like a cur, distorted,

not minding tending many sins

Born in sullen February,

grown in a Crucible of wind,

nurtured amber’s never wary

of her temptation, boozy sin--

Much tragedy, unfading in

a Month of cold and ample Sin.

The title of the above poem refers to a poem called Bereavement by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Don’t ask how I made these connections, because I really don't think I can explain. But, whew! My challenge is (more than) complete.

We do not provide a Linky for personal challenge posts, but if you are crazy enough to be inspired to write sonnets, or are inspired by any other part of this long, long post, feel free to write and share a link with us in the comments. I promise to visit you if you do. And if you are still reading, thank you so much for indulging me. Love & XO, Marian

Two Birthdays in July - The Sonneteers

In researching poets born in July, I happened upon a lucky coincidence: two poets born 600 years apart who have made the sonnet their form of choice.

Francesco Petrarch
Public Domain

The first is Francesco Petrarch, born on 20 July 1304 in the city of Arezzo, Italy. He is credited historically with the development of the sonnet form, having written 317 poems based on the rules established by 13th Century poet, Guittone of Arezzo.

Gli Occhi Di Chi' Io Parlai

Those eyes, 'neath which my passionate rapture rose, 
The arms, hands, feet, the beauty that erewhile 
Could my own soul from its own self beguile, 
And in a separate world of dreams enclose, 
The hair's bright tresses, full of golden glows, 
And the soft lightning of the angelic smile 
That changed this earth to some celestial isle, 
Are now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows. 
And yet I live! Myself I grieve and scorn, 
Left dark without the light I loved in vain, 
Adrift in tempest on a bark forlorn; 
Dead is the source of all my amorous strain, 
Dry is the channel of my thoughts outworn, 
And my sad harp can sound but notes of pain.
(Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson)

The Petrarchan sonnet, at least in its Italian-language form, generally follows a set rhyme scheme, which runs as follows:
a b b a a b b a c d c d c d.
The first eight lines, or octave, do not often deviate from the abba abba pattern, but the last six lines, or sestet, frequently follow a different pattern, such as cde cde, cde ced, or cdc dee. Each line also has the same number of syllables, usually 11 or 7 by Petrarch.  Source

Pablo Neruda
Public Domain

The second poet being featured today has written many sonnets in the Petrarchan form. Pablo Neruda (born 12 July 1904) was a Chilean poet, diplomat, political activist, and communist refugee- to name a few of his incarnations. Throughout his career he integrated private and public concerns, and was known as the people’s poet. During his life Neruda received numerous prestigious awards, including the International Peace Prize in 1950 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He is considered to be among the greatest Latin-American poets of all time.  Source

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This link provides additional quotes from Neruda's work.

What I find fascinating about reading Neruda's sonnets (many more can be found HERE) in English, is the absence of a rhyme scheme and loss of the iambic meter, which translators have not been at pains to carry over. What is left is the essence of the poem, the imagery, the words and the structure of octave and sestet, which Neruda further splits up into two quatrains and two tercets. This seems to offer a more modern approach to writing in a form that is 7 centuries old, and in the past, I have attempted to write my English poetry in a 'Nerudan' style. (Example HERE)

Our challenge today (and I apologize if it is not so 'mini') is to write a sonnet, choosing either the classic style of Francesco Petrarch, or in the style of Pablo Neruda, as his poems appear in translation. The Sunday Challenge is posted on Saturday at noon CST to allow extra time for the form challenge. 

We stipulate that only poems written for this challenge may be added to the Mr Linky.  Management reserves the right to remove unrelated links, but invites you to share a poem of your choice on Open Link Monday.