The challenge of writing this sonnet is that I prefer free verse, and find that any excursion I take into forms such as the sonnet become canted by the dynamics of the form itself; for example, the inverted syntax of Elizabethan English certainly works more smoothly than modern idiom. I found, while working on this piece that I had a distinct tendency to fall into forced rhythms which are alien to the natural rhythm of the individual words — a trait better suited to comic verse than serious. I’ll save the original version here, then publish a version that I will tinker with, under the title of “Sonnet Song — in progress”
There are strange things done in the service of writing a sonnet;
For example, the modern idiom doesn’t quite fit:
You would think an Elizabethan were working upon it;
For the rhetoric, diction and syntax make me want to quit.
Then there’s the stanza that just won’t behave itself properly;
You’d think it was Gilbert and Sullivan trying to break free.
I try to take change and rein in this cantankerous property;
But nothing I try can stop melting my cool by degrees.
Of course fans of free verse will just turn up their noses at scansion:
And rhyming will alienate and completely bewilder;
But look at the words and the style of the rhymers and rappers
They’re not just old fogies with hair long and wavey and silver.
Before you say a sonnet’s only crap,
Just listen to the brothers doing rap.
