my critical blabbering can be considered torture, I guess!
I was just wondering *why* & *how* you define it more broadly, but
you've not been very forthcoming with your interpretation. you don't
have to be, if you'd rather I & someone else kept being perplexed at
the 'sonnet'-title you give many of your poems.
KS
On 14/10/2007, Halvard Johnson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> That pretty much sums it up, Kasper. I define "sonnet" more
> broadly (okay, much more broadly) than you do.
>
> I also define "torture" much more broadly than Bush does,
> not that I'm paralleling you to Bush in any way.
>
> Hal
>
> "If you can't annoy somebody, what's
> the point in writing?"
> --Kingsley Amis
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> [log in to unmask]
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html
>
>
> On Oct 14, 2007, at 11:11 AM, kasper salonen wrote:
>
> > well the problem I have with sonnets, if it can be called a problem,
> > is that I generally don't consider the form to be much at all without
> > its structure. I mean, originally I believe a sonnet was intended
> > fairly strictly as a love poem, even an ode-like addressal (Petrarch's
> > Laura &c.); that seems to have fallen away entirely as a requirement.
> > I used to write a lot of sonnets, none of them about love; the only
> > thing that made them sonnets, to me, was the (optional) ABAB & the
> > iambic pentameter. looking back, they were all quite introspective &
> > yet broad, descriptions & propsals for connections (links between
> > forest, heaven, home, monastery, that sort of thing); but that came
> > pretty much along with the form, which almost requires some form of
> > deep thought for the iambic punching to be worth anything.
> >
> > but take away the structure, as Hal has done, and I see little or
> > nothing to indicate or even remind me of the form. Hal you say it's a
> > "broad, deep river"; you clearly have strong personal reasons for
> > believing that, but I don't see it personally -- I wouldn't mind being
> > talked into it. I've always considered the sonnet to be a very shallow
> > poetic form, one of those "form justifies content" (meaning that a
> > sonnet was good as long as the rhymes & metre were in place) sort of
> > deals which drove me away from metric poetry in the first place.
> >
> > some early sonnets were quite provocative in ways, mentioning kings &
> > priests & laymen in contexts in which they weren't supposed to appear;
> > so maybe by calling an anti-Bush poem a 'sonnet' means to bring out
> > some mode of ancient commentary?
> > as to the way sonnets 'move and behave', as Joanna put it, I would
> > attribute ALL movement & behaviour to be confined within the cage of
> > its structure. without the cage, it can go anywhere & thus escape
> > classification.
> >
> > KS
> >
> > On 14/10/2007, Joanna Boulter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >> Yes I know, the exception rather than the rule, and a matter for
> >> comment. It
> >> might be interesting to look at a few of them, and see what
> >> actually does
> >> make them sonnets rather than thirteen-line poems. *If we can find
> >> enough
> >> examples that we can agree on as being true examples.
> >>
> >> But to my mind, a sonnet is more than just the number of its
> >> lines, and I
> >> suspect that this is what Kasper's feeling here, possibly Janet
> >> too. I mean,
> >> not all four-legged animals are dogs -- there are differentials
> >> that mark
> >> them out instantly from cats. Nor do the tailless Manx cat and the
> >> boxer dog
> >> with the docked tail cloud the issue there.
> >>
> >> I suspect it's something to do with the way they move and behave,
> >> but would
> >> be interested to see what others think.
> >>
> >> joanna
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "andrew burke" <[log in to unmask]>
> >> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> >> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 12:21 PM
> >> Subject: Re: Sonnets (Re: Sonnet for the Criminally Insane )
> >>
> >>
> >>> There have been 13 line sonnets in history, y'know ...
> >>>
> >>> Andrew
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 14/10/2007, Joanna Boulter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Good questions, Janet, especially that last para.
> >>>>
> >>>> I have a habit of writing short poems which turn out to be 13-
> >>>> liners. A
> >>>> surprising number of people say "Why don't you add another line,
> >>>> and then
> >>>> it'll be a sonnet?" My answer is usually "It doesn't want to be
> >>>> one --
> >>>> and
> >>>> yes, I did ask it!" However, the real reason I don't is more
> >>>> likely that
> >>>> I've said what I need to say in 13 lines and can see no point in
> >>>> adding a
> >>>> 14th for the sake of it.
> >>>>
> >>>> Having said that, though, I can and do write sonnets.
> >>>>
> >>>> joanna
> >>>>
> >>>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>> From: "Janet Jackson" <[log in to unmask]>
> >>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> >>>> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 2:52 AM
> >>>> Subject: Sonnets (Re: Sonnet for the Criminally Insane )
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>> Mine are non-metrical, non-rhyming (for the most part)
> >>>>>> sonnets. The sonnet's a broad, deep river with interesting
> >>>>>> eddies at its margins.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> OK, Hal, please would you educate us?
> >>>>> What makes a poem a sonnet, and not just a 14-line poem?
> >>>>> That it presents an opinion?
> >>>>> That the lines are longish and all about the same length?
> >>>>> That if you really work at it you read it with five stresses
> >>>>> per line?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I have a book somewhere that claims sonnets should have
> >>>>> a "volta", a twist at about line 9, but I don't see that
> >>>>> in this one.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I suspect Kasper is more interested in why you bother labelling
> >>>>> it a sonnet, what your purpose is in doing that.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Janet
> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>> ------
> >>>>> Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
> >>>>> www.myspace.com/poetjj
> >>>>> www.proximity.webhop.net
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Allegedly, some kid poet came over to Robert Frost at some
> >>>>> gathering
> >>>>> and
> >>>>> introduced himself by saying "I'm a poet." Frost replied
> >>>>> "That's a
> >>>>> praise word. I'd wait 'til someone else called me that."
> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>> ------
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Andrew
> >>> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
> >>> http://www.inblogs.net/hispirits
> >>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/aburke/
> >>>
> >>
>
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