The SONNET

Here you will find brave experiments with that form called the SONNET. Humans wrote these! Some 8th graders and two teachers. We invite more submissions. As you can see, ours are not perfect, so you don't have to worry. If you want to play with HUMANS vs. ROBOTS writing sonnets, check out this SITE

And below are some valiant attempt by people you might even know....

Mr. Warshaw was the first to take this challenge!

Youth Deprived

I’m aged now. I see the moon set, not rise

Vague reflections on frothy water: friends?

Gray waves bring ghosts to my perilous eyes

Or perhaps Fate’s new adventures portend

The moon is heroic yet vilified

Gold harvest, iv’ry tides, romance, madness

It is late in this life where joy resides

The young are companions to thoughtlessness

Ominous shoreline, where darkness still reigns

Trees stand dominion over rocks and snow

Radiant I loom, it’s morning again!

Few children this moon is ever to know

Unexpected delights shadows confine

Enlightenment brought by morning’s moonshine

Eli Olson presents us with the sonnet as murder mystery....

I came to town aboard my horse at dawn

The road was rough and rock were strewn about

I saw that in the town the folks we gone

I saw the river dry it was a drought

A window smashed, sunlight streams through

The quiet so thick my ear could not believe

Why were they gone ,was there a town wide coup?

Blood like river, red and sticky flows

For a sin so large a killer, but why?

No trace I saw of life in this dead town

Who would cause so many to lose their life?

Doors wide, dark maw, inside the crime revealed

Inside, the wall with new paint red, splattered

Who killed a town, the people too? Absurd.

From Isabel Peters:

Aside: Doesn't that last line just want to stick in your head?

Amidst harsh winter days

A delicate flower bloomed

Hearts caught in a blaze

By speech we were not entombed

Time passed, awash in light so pure

Gentle hearts were united too

and parting tears I did assure

somehow we would get through

oceans dug a simple grave

too far were you and me

emotions made a looming wave

A caged animal set free

Let us find what was once ours

The sky can’t twinkle without her stars

Natalie Waloven wrote about the STRANGER:

Places that lacked walls yet stretched so tall

They told them peace but they only lied

Creating places where children cried

Places where the mothers call

And people with wishes sing with a drawl

No matter how much the others tried

Everyone was caught in the sound of the brontide

And suddenly everyone seems so small

But climbing up the family tree

Hope is replaced with such anger

All the children want is to be free

Lost homes are left to escape the danger

And it doesn’t take long for them to see

That peace was only a lonely stranger

Jack Janczuk went fishing.

From the author: It is about a fictional battle with reeling in a large fish, written in Shakespearean Form.

I watch closely as the rod tip bends

And thus begins the fight

I run across the boat to the port end

And pull with all my might

I prepare myself for the struggle with this aquatic beast

The line certainly isn’t loose

The thought I might lose it isn’t fun in the least

I wish I could just call a truce

I prepare myself for the final run

Let it go than crank the reel

I swear this thing must weigh a ton

It’s yellow color against the ocean’s teal

I haul this monster in at last

I’ve never seen a reel move that fast

Sebastien Martinez offers us a sonnet about one of his passions:

The Love of Golf

Written by Sebastien Martínez

The love of golf is strong; it never fades,

Just like a mother’s love for her offspring,

To walk on a golf course is to amaze,

To hit a ball off grass is quite stunning

You can not simply take my word for it,

But rather go to play a round or two,

‘Cause golf’s a game not told but rather lived,

Experienced with love and joy in you

But golf, while fun, can also be a game,

Of hate, of rage, of “Oh, what have I done?”

Soon, that mother’s love which is so tame,

Gives way to bitterness, nothing of fun

But he who loves the sport always returns

To play once more and let their fire burn.

Tristan Hardel wrote a Shakespearean style sonnet about the act of writing .. a sonnet!

A sonnet is something that I will write

Although an author it is hard to be

To write upon pages so very white

To see words float ‘cross the page like the sea,

If you’re underwater you need swimsuit,

Or a snorkel if your fancy and cool

If you are hungry consider a root.

but get lots of exercise in a pool.

A sonnet is something that I did write

Upon pages oh so very quite white.

Ella Brown wrote a Petrarchan sonnet about SPRING!

Spring brings changes of the autumnal kind

the breezes sing and the treetops whistle

morning dew on a thorny thistle

summer daydreams bring to mind

childhood days when you would find

grasshoppers launching as if a missile

and a groundhog's shadow that prevents dismissal

a stealthy toad hides in a swampy blind

hunting flies among the flower

whose colors shine more than ever

as morning glories daily unfold

again reborn each morning hour

the springtime song of the zephyr

bids adieu to the cold

Ms. Agell found a sonnet while out walking in the winter night:

Rangeley

The setting crescent moon and Venus, oh so bright

The snow banks glow, yet melt into a stream

This hibernal walk might almost seem a dream

The sky so vast, the world so wildly white

This is an ordinary late winter’s night

Yet now in darkness comes a scream

An owl or night hawk it would seem

We are all ears, with our diminished sight

The screaming ends, far howling takes its part

From our warm cabin rises curling smoke

This dark beauty fills us, soul and heart

The stars rain down, we are celestially soaked

We’re almost home, we realize with a start

We’re listening now and, yes, the season spoke.