Jenny Factor

Writing Sonnets

Friday, June 21, 2024, 1:00 to 2:30 p.m.

Think of it! A resilient thirteenth century verse form, practiced in asynchronous eras and multiple languages and cultures, survives and thrives to this day. But what is at the beating heart of this angelic, diabolical and enduring little fourteen-line contraption? Contemporary sonnets--to those poets who write the majority of them--are not recipe books, or torture devices, or an opportunity to get graded on the perfect figure-skating long program (when you're not even an Olympic athlete). Contemporary sonnets are fluid functions in verse-form, whose elements can twist and turn, convey and vary. 

In this class, we will "get the feel" for writing contemporary sonnets. Meter? We'll practice it. Rhyme scheme? Time to broaden your definition of an "end word". Theme or topic? Well, some concepts do seem to fit more naturally into the size and shape of the true fourteener. Let's explore these themes together. 

Prior to class, please be familiar with the rules of the sonnet, as defined by the New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetic Forms or any other reliable source online or in print; and be able to say how the following sonnets do and do not meet the classic definition of the form.

Three types of sonnets are included in our handout (in the Reader): a collection of single sonnets, complying to rules, a collection of (as poet Molly Bendall has once called them) "misbehaving" sonnets, breaking one or more rules, and a collection of sonnet sequences, coronas, and crowns. Please read these over and make some notes.

Required Reading (in Reader):

(As much of this as practical)

Hacker, Marilyn. "The Sonnet." Unauthorized Voices, University of Michigan Press, 2010, pp. 128-144.

(Also please read and analyze a few of the selected sonnets in the Reader):

Single Sonnets

Berryman, John. “Sonnet 115.” Sonnets, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

Brooks, Gwendolyn.  "Rites for Cousin Vit." Selected Poems, Harper Collins, 2006.

Hacker, Marilyn. “Montpeyroux Sonnet.” PN Review 260, July/Aug. 2021.

Heaney, Seamus, from "Clearances." The Haw Lantern, Noonday Press, 1987.

Stoner, Julie. "Dear John (Drafts 1-4)." Hot Sonnets, edited by Moira Egan and Clarinda Harris, Entasis Press, 2011.

Misbehaving Sonnets

Campo, Rafael. "Ten Patients and Another." What the Body Told, Duke University Press, 1996.

Davis, Olena Kalytiak. "may be you are like me: scared and awake." Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, and Other Off- and Back-Handed Opportunities, Bloomsbury, 2003.

Su, Adrienne. "Four Sonnets about Food." Middle Kingdom, Alice James Press, 1997.

Sonnet Sequences

Davis, Olena Kalytiak. "Francesca Says... ." Best American Erotic Poetry, Scribner, 2006.

Hayes, Terrence. “American Sonnet for my Past and Future Assassin.” American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassins, Penguin, 2018.

Rios, Alberto. "Second Grade." The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, Copper Canyon Press, 2002.