Identify the type of sonnet, the modifications, if any, the poet has made to the form, and the volta.

Golden Retrievals

BY MARK DOTY

Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention

seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.

Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s—oh

joy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then

I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue

of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?

Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk,

thinking of what you never can bring back,

or else you’re off in some fog concerning

—tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:

to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving,

my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,

a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here,

entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176664

This is a Shakespearean Sonnet with the main exception being the rhyme scheme. However, I would still consider it Shakespearean because it is divided into the quatrains, and the volta comes at the correct location.
The main modifications are in the rhyme scheme and meter. (So mainly the only thing making this a sonnet is the number of lines and the fact that poetry foundation said so....) The meter is sort of all over the place with many substitutions, that is if you chose to say it should be iambic pentameter. There is rhyme involved but it doesn't follow the Shakespearned format.
The volta is at the end with the couplet. Typically we think of owners being in charge of their pets or atleast equal, and the poem starts out with the dog and the owner doing their own things but the volta shows the dog's power in the relationship, indicating the volta.

The main reason I chose this poem is it is more modern than most of the stuff we have been reading and it was interesting to see how something this abnormal is possible in such a traditional form.
Maybe part of the reason the poet chose a Sonnet is because they wanted to take an idea and then change it and skew it, sort of like the reader's perception of a owner/pet relationship.

Sonnet

The Professor

By Joshua Mehigan

I get there early and I find a chair.

I squeeze my plastic cup of wine. I nod.

I maladroitly eat a pretzel rod

and second an opinion I don’t share.

I think: whatever else I am, I’m there.

Afterwards, I escape across the quad

into fresh air, alone again, thank god.

Nobody cares. They’re quite right not to care.

I can’t go home. Even my family

is thoroughly contemptuous of me.

I look bad. I’m exactly how I look.

These days I never read, but no one does,

and, anyhow, I proved how smart I was.

Everything I know is from a book.

I found my poem on the Poetry Foundation site. It is called “The Professor” by Joshua Mehigan. It had an interesting title so I decided to check it out. Turns out it is a classic Petrarchan sonnet. Petrachan poems follow the pattern of eight lines, an octave, plus a six line stanza called a sestet. The poem also has a clear turn at the end of the octave and start of the sestet. The first stanza talks about the routine of the speaker’s life. It is seems very monotonous and unexciting. The second stanza quickly shifts to a serious topic. It starts “I can’t go home,” The second stanza discusses that though people do not read anymore, and the speaker did not read anymore, the speaker had learned everything they knew from a book. I really enjoyed the ending thought because I really value the impact of reading good books. Overall, I enjoyed reading this sonnet and looking into Petrachan style. I had really only noticed Shakespearean sonnet before, as we are not introduced to the many other styles of sonnet, so this was a good poem for me to look at.

sonnet-italian

Gracious Damsel

I wonder whether this is love or lust,
If rain reigns in the day or dark night,
Confused a s I lay low without forsight,
My soul sails through the sea of metal rust,
Clean my lens and brush my hair just to adjust, 
Hoping to see my diamond shine so bright,
This passion can`t be hidden but brought to light,
as I look at the sky to know who to trust.

Heaven smiles at me as my joy abound,
This reminds one that shinning stars are few,
Knowing that goodness and bliss will be found,
I walk towards my pearl for the time is due,
Her beauty and traits spin many heads around,
For her benevolence you have to take a queue.

This is an Italian Sonnet. It follows the traditional a-b-a-b form and the modification is that it only has two stanzas. I chose this sonnet because I thought it was an intriguing sonnet about love and life. It questions what true love it and what this relationship really is. The volta begins with heaven smiles at me as my joy abound because it changes from questioning the love to rejoicing it! I think the first stanza questions if the love is true, and the second stanza answers the questions by showing that the love is great, happy, and true.

Sonnet Analysis

SECOND COMING

Cold winds from the north grew wilder, puckered
The face and flared hair. Loaded bush and tree
Flew comet tail and bent. For long before we
Had heard the whinge of animal and bird.
It is the ice again, it is the ice
Again. Something has provoked the long peace,
Something has stirred the white rage of passion,
Swollen, risen out on the horizon.
It is the conqueror again. She tramps
To war again, she surges on, taking
All in her stride, growth and rising, old ramps
And barriers of former battle, ring
And granite rampart, then piles up and slumps
To silence. That was her second coming.

http://www.petermakem.com/

The rhyme scheme changed.  Makem's scheme is "ABBACCDDEFEFEF."  It's kind of a mix between Shakespearean rhyme and Petrarchan rhyme.  The enjambment used pulls the focus from the format of the sonnet and puts more attention on the meaning and sound of the poem overall.  There seems to be iambic meter throughout the poem, but instead of lines it's used in the sentences; it isn't perfect, either.  "For long before we/had heard the whinge of animal and bird," can be split up like this: "For long/before/we/had heard/the whinge/of an/imal/and bird," with "we" as the connector between the two lines.  At the same time, iambic can't be found all throughout the poem.  The line "something has stirred..." has all sorts of patterns in it, but they don't exactly repeat.  I guess the volta is line 9.  It changes from "it" to she."  The speaker finally knows what is going on; the conqueror is here again.  It talks about the change of weather?  Yeah that sounds right, with things getting colder and trees losing leaves?  And birds used to chirp and stuff.  White rage can be snow.  Hey, maybe the conqueror is winter?  Makes sense. I think this poem is about a blizzard or just snow in general.  The sonnet form helps show the romantic side of seasonal change while the actual words demonstrate the power and unpredictability of weather. 

Sonnet

Love Is Not All

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink

Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,

Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink

and rise and sink and rise and sink again.

Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath

Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;

Yet many a man is making friends with death

even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

It well may be that in a difficult hour,

pinned down by need and moaning for release

or nagged by want past resolution's power,

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,

Or trade the memory of this night for food.

It may well be. I do not think I would.

This sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay seems to be a modified Petrarchan sonnet. Although Millay does not maintain the eight lines/turn/six lines format, it is most similar to the Petrarchan form going with six lines/turn/ eight lines. The shift in tone becomes evident at the beginning of the seventh line where Millay starts with, “yet many a man is making friends with death/ even as I speak, for lack of love alone.” At the beginning of the poem, the poet appears to be disturbed by the importance people put into “love” and criticizes that “Love is not all. “ After the volta, Millay seems to begin to question why that is, why it is that so many long for it. She now begins to use more personal pronouns, like “I” and “you.” It becomes more personal, more real for both the speaker and the reader. This particular form allows for Millay’s sentiments about love to come off in a more natural way. It gets the point across, making the reader aware but at the same time creates a mellow mindset in the reader.  

Sonnet blog

Last Hope

BY PAUL VERLAINE

TRANSLATED BY NORMAN R. SHAPIRO

Beside a humble stone, a tree

Floats in the cemetery’s air,

Not planted in memoriam there,

But growing wild, uncultured, free.

A bird comes perching there to sing,

Winter and summer, proffering

Its faithful song—sad, bittersweet.

That tree, that bird are you and I:

You, memory; absence, me, that tide

And time record. Ah, by your side

To live again, undying! Aye,

To live again! But ma petite,

Now nothingness, cold, owns my flesh. . .

Will your love keep my memory fresh?

This sonnet, if it fits into any one type, would be Petrarchan. This is because it starts out with an ABBA rhyme scheme. Other characteristics of this poem are that it is indeed fourteen lines and the majority of the lines contain eight syllables. The rhyme scheme and the consistency of the meter provides stability and a clear line of thought. Because the beginning and the end are provided in such a similar fashion, the reader is better able to follow the meaning of each individual line and thus the significance of the poem as a whole.

I selected this poem based solely upon its title. As I scrolled through the sonnet section of the website I looked for an interesting title and words that were easy to understand, because complex language when simpler language can be used is either excessive or showing off. Or both. Anyway, this poem’s title reminds me of the star wars movie “A New Hope”. There is nothing else that compelled me to select this poem among all of them available.

Sonnet

Sonnet 3- Shakespeare

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity? 
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
   But if thou live, remembered not to be,
   Die single and thine image dies with thee.

The rhyme scheme for this sonnet is ABABCDCDEFEFGG. It is obviously Shakespearean, because, well, Shakespeare wrote it. The sonnet is about procreation and how one's spirit and physical beauty dies with his physical body if he does not make babies. I think the volta is before the last couplet, because it begins to discuss what happens if one does not procreate...the legacy dies, he cannot see himself in the child, etc. The sonnet form kind of contributes to a dreaminess of having children, instead of the whining and crying and ungratefulness. It has a very traditional sonnet form with iambic pentameter throughout. The traditional form further emphasizes his point of a traditional family, with a mother and father creating children that carry on their genes. I thought it was interesting the Shakespeare, who's not a female, was so concerned about children when that was usually a female role.  The 1609 Quarto version reads: 

Looke in thy glaſſe and tell the face thou veweſt, 
Now is the time that face ſhould forme an other, 
Whoſe freſh repaire if now thou not reneweſt, 
Thou doo'ſt beguile the world,vnbleſſe ſome 
mother. 
For where is ſhe ſo faire whoſe vn-eard wombe 
Diſdaines the tillage of thy huſbandry? 
Or who is he ſo fond will be the tombe, 
Of his ſelfe loue to ſtop poſterity? 
Thou art thy mothers glaſſe and ſhe in thee 
Calls backe the louely Aprill of her prime, 
So thou through windowes of thine age ſhalt ſee, 
Diſpight of wrinkles this thy goulden time. 
  But if thou liue remembred not to be, 
  Die ſingle and thine Image dies with thee.

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

 

“Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” is a Petrarch sonnet. Petrarch sonnets describe features with simile, metaphor, and/ or hyperbole. In this poem many metaphors are used to describe where the persons is. She is claiming that she is not dead; instead, she is the wind, snow, sunlight, autumn rain, birds, and stars. It follows an aabbcc… rhyme scheme. There are no modifications of the end rhyme scheme. Frye repeats “I am” in the 2-6 and again in 8,10, and 12. One modification Frye made was the number of lines. This poem contains 12 lines while the typical sonnet has 14 lines. The turn in the last two lines. The first 10 lines are filled with metaphors that describe the person. The last two lines are telling the viewers not to dwell over the grave because she is not there mentally. She may be there physically however, what people know as her is not in that grave. She still “lives on.” This poem is convincing her mourners not to feel bad for her “dying” because she did not die spiritually. She does  not wish for people to weep over her grave because she does not fear dying. I chose this sonnet because it makes sense to me. I of course do not relate to it because I am not near death or dead. But, the poem is easily comprehendible.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/do-not-stand-at-my-grave-and-weep/

Sonnet

Navel-Gazing

by Joanna Pearson

The baby, bath-time belly glistening, shows
his center mark, that cicatricial gash
the mystics contemplated as a rose,
omphalic core, a mandala. He’ll splash
bright soapy rings and circlets in the tub.
His tummy glints round nuclei of light.
Leaning towards her slippery son to scrub,
the mother thinks of buds or seeds, the tight
and knotted body of an unhusked snail
when her hands glaze his perfect belly button.
And then he laughs, his small mouth like a bell.
She feels the resonance, its spreading sudden,
and reaching for the towel, feels the pull
of love like fossil pools — deep, umbilical.

“Navel-Gazing” by Joanna Pearson follows the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet (three quatrains of ABABCDCDEFEF and then a rhyming couplet GG). Pearson modifies the Shakespearean sonnet by having a shift in line 7. The poem shifts from describing the baby to describing the mother. I think this turn was effective in line 7 because it helped me to see that the poem is not about a weird person who really likes describing baby bellies during bath time, but rather about a caring mother who observes and adores all aspects of her baby. There’s a second shift in line 11 where the speaker moves away from describing the baby’s belly to describing the baby’s laugh, the baby’s mouth, and the mother’s love. This adds to what I said before about the poem expressing a mother’s observation and adoration for her baby. I chose this sonnet because it had a cute picture of a baby next to it. I’m not even kidding. Also, I wanted to analyze a light hearted poem and this was just that. What does this poem mean? Babies are perfect with their glistening bellies and bell-like mouths. Mothers love those things about their babies. 

Visit this page to see the poem and the picture of the baby: http://www.14by14.com/Sonnets/August2011/Navel-Gazing.html

Sonnet

Wife to Be

I stroll along a fragrant country lane
With honeysuckle perfume on the air -
And feathered crooner's warble to revere -
Then cross a golden sea of flowing grain
In empathy - it seems to sense my pain
Of knowing all was done with my affair -
Her empty meaning now the solitaire
She cast away - betrothment all in vain.
But oceans team with many fish to catch
So I must up and hoist another sail
And seek the one that really waits for me,
For soon auspicious breezes will prevail
In guiding forth to find a truer match:
The one to take my hand as wife to be.

Mark R Slaughter

The above sonnet is an example of a Petrarchan sonnet following an ABBAABBA turn CDEDCE, a slight modification from the tradition CDECDE sestet. Characteristic of a petrarch, the poet characterizes the woman through a metaphor, in this case equating her beauty and flightiness to the scenery of his stroll. The turn shifts from him wallowing about her leaving to him with new conviction in finding a new wife.

"Fairy-tale Logic" by A. E. Stallings

"Fairy-tale Logic" Sonnet by A. E. Stallings

Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks:

Gather the chin hairs of a man-eating goat,

Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat,

Select the prince from a row of identical masks,

Tiptoe up to a dragon where it basks

And snatch its bone; count dust specks, mote by mote,

Or learn the phone directory by rote.

Always it’s impossible what someone asks—

You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe

That you have something impossible up your sleeve,

The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak,

An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke,

The will to do whatever must be done:

Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/238826


This sonnet is a Petrarchan Sonnet following the form of:

A
B
B
A
A
B
B
A
            The turn
C
D
E
C
D
E

In this sonnet, the author didn't make any modifications for the sonnet form, and the volta (or the turn as it is called) is between lines 8 and 9. Here, it shifts from the seemingly impossible tasks to how one overcomes and completes those tasks.

Sonnet Blog

Sonnet CVLVII: My love is as a fever, longing still

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/245774

This lovely sonnet is a classic Shakespearean sonnet as it was written by Shakespeare himself. It has 3 quatrains with ABABCDCDEFEF rhyme scheme with a turn between lines 12 and 13 and a rhyming GG couplet.
In the sonnet, Shakespeare is talking about love, but not in any sort of good light. He compares love to a fever which progresses into sickness, which only harms him in the end and leaves him with bitter feelings toward his lover. He even says his lover is "as black as hell, as dark as night" after previously believing that they were "fair and... bright". The bitter feelings toward his lover is the "turn" of the sonnet, as throughout all the beginning of the poem he was describing only the illness that love is and what it was doing to him.
The form ties into Shakespeare's message in that he outlines how love is harmful like an illness progressively through the poem, culminating in the final realization that he was fooled by his lover all along. He thought that they were fair and bright, but they were really just dark inside.
I chose to analyze this sonnet over others because of a few reasons. For one, I really wanted to dig into a Shakespearean poem that isn't extremely popular. Also, the topic of this sonnet truly interested me in its twisted nature of how the speaker is so harmed by love as much as they want it, and having to deal with the fact that the person they love isn't what they thought they were.

Sonnet Analysis: Acquainted With The Night by Robert Frost

Acquainted With The Night 
by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-by;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Best%20Sonnets.htm

After searching through lots of modern sonnets trying to find one that was hilariously funny, I decided to settle (if you call it that) with Acquainted With The Night by Robert Frost. Undoubtedly one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century in the United States, I felt like by picking this I would have a lot of stuff to sink my teeth into.

Let's break it down. First thing I probably need to do is classify the type of sonnet. At first glance, it looks a little bit tricky, given that there are no Octaves, Sestets, or even Quatrains (referring to our trusted powerpoint cheat sheet). The only things that give it away to being a Shakespearean Sonnet are the Rhyming Couplet at the end (ah-ha!) and the fact that that the sonnet follows the Shakespearean Rhyme Pattern for the most part. In addition, on closer examination we see that Frost doesn't use the traditional end rhyme scheme, but instead takes a page out of the villanelle playbook by going with terza rima. Therefore, we can regard Frost's poem in a unique way in that he combines the Shakespearean Sonnet and Villanelle Forms in a brilliant poetic display.

One of my favorite things we've talked about so far in this class has been the popular conflict of light vs dark. Once again, it surfaces here in this poem. The narrator is essentially lamenting on how his life has essentially gone down the supposedly wrong path of darkness and away from the good path of light. The important narrative quality I recognized after reading this was that the passive voice indicates that the narrator doesn't really have any control over his fate now, if he did at all to begin with.

I feel like much of this decisiveness regarding the narrator's fate comes from the turn, which I deduced to be the last line of the third tercet and the first line of the fourth tercet. The spaced line in between serves as an effective pause mechanism for the readers, almost as if we are hanging on every last word. When we see that the cry "Came over houses from another street", we essentially think that this might be the turning point for the narrator, perhaps his chance to become a hero and get back in the light. However, these hopes are absolutely SHATTERED in the next line "But not to call me back, or say good-by;". We really feel for the narrator, looking at him essentially as a figure upon whom life has passed by.

This leads me to the big meaning/theme point. Essentially, Robert's Sonnet effectively uses the confines of the Shakespearean Sonnet in order to emphasize through the narrator that past actions have the power to permanently shape one's fate for the rest of one's life.

Sonnet blog

Sonnet 60 - Shakespeare

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

 Given that this sonnet was written by Shakespeare, it is quite obviously a Shakespearean sonnet. It has three quatrains followed by the rhyming couplet. The turn in the sonnet occurs right before the couplet. Shakespeare spends the quatrains comparing life to waves on a pebbled shore, with our time running out as the waves approach the shore. He also compares life to light from the sun and as it "crawls to maturity" the light darkens. His last quatrain is focused on the ruthlessness of time: it diminishes beauty and ravages everything in its way. The couplet, however, speaks of how his "verse" will live on and the one the addressee's worth and beauty will live on as well, despite time's wrath.

Sonnet Analysis

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/242124

The sonnet I found is "Fruit Don't Fall Far," by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. I chose this sonnet because it is a lovely mix of flowery language and blunt profanity, which is what I look for in any literary work. It's three quatrains and couplet make it a Shakespearean sonnet, as well as the rhyme scheme. Now, von Freytag-Loringhoven wasn't very strict in sticking to meter and rhyme scheme. There are deviations from iambic pentameter in lines 10 and 12, and line 6 only works if you slur "irons" into one syllable. And several of her rhymes are just kinda close, like rhyming "ribaldry" with "heap," or "smutty" with "fucking" (I'msorrythat'swhatitsays!).

The turn, while usually between lines 12 and 13 in Shakespearean sonnets, instead comes between lines 8 and 9, as is customary of Petrarchal sonnets. At the turn, she shifts from describing her parents and the traits they gave her to contemplating the legitimacy of parenthood. This point of the sonnet is von Freytag-Loringhoven expressing what borders on mild disgust for her parents. She describes her father as crude and not much else, and her mother as harsh and dominating. But she has to grudgingly accept that they are, in fact, her biological parents and she can do nothing about that fact. She must even accept that much of the traits of her parents that she disliked are also present in her; as they say, the "Fruit Don't Fall Far" from the tree.