Tuesday, April 6, 2021

An Epic Told in 500 Sonnets: “The Gift of Life” by Amanda Hall


Poet Amanda Hall has a gift for writing sonnets, such a gift, in fact, that she’s created an epic story of unrequited and rechanneled love and told it in sonnet form – as in 500 sonnets. 

This is no easy feat. Writing a sonnet requires poetic discipline. The English sonnet (think William Shakespeare) is a poem of 14 lines – three quatrains of four lines each, concluding with couplet. It has a rhyme scheme of ABAB / CDCD / EFEF / GG. Traditionally, the sonnet is written in iambic pentameter – each line has 10 syllables in five pairs, with the stress on the second syllable.

 

The sonnet is the poetic form most associated with love (thanks again to Shakespeare and also Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning). It is an intensely personal poem, written for a reading audience of one. It shares characteristics with the love song; in fact, “sonnet” means “little song.”

 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry

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