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Don February 2nd, 2010

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Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

This was so much fun!  I wrote it because I could.

On the Writing of Sonnets

Sonnet XXXIII

A perfect sonnet must have fourteen lines,

Ten syllables in each, the evens strong

(In French the sonnet uses twelve and shines,

But twelve in English verse is just too long).

In Italy it rhymes A B B A;

A B B A again the Octave makes.

The Sextet then has three rhymes which it may

Arrange diversely when the sonnet “breaks.”

Elizabethan sonnets break three times,

Once after every quatrain, just for fun.

A B A B, and so forth, run the rhymes.

You end them with a couplet; here is one:

This sonnet is not great, but it is good,

A “perfect” sonnet if you’ve understood.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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