BACK TO SCHOOL #2 

Poem for Today - August 17, 2014

SONNETEERING MADE EASY

I

With hyphens, clip off endings that don't fit;

We call this “Hyper-Technic Line Expan-”

It has a certain rhythmic swing to it

That can't be got with ordinary scan‑

Pentameter, iambic, is the rule

They teach in every other Sonnet School;

But we have found it simpler, if not nea-­

To take occasional liberties with me‑

Three quatrains and a couplet is the length

Of Shakespeare's sonnets, and of those by Mil-

It's standardized, like cheese from Brie or Stil­-

The only difference being in the strength.

So now that we have settled length and ti-

Our Lesson Number II involves the rhy‑

II

You'll note the scheme, “a,” “b,” “a,” “b,” above

In Quatrain One; that's perfectly O.K.

If something different's what you're thinking of,

See Quatrain Three, with its “a,” “b,” “b,” “a.”

For mittel quatrains we prefer to reck‑

With what the Germans, in their “schonnet-sprech-”

Employ: “a,” “a,” “b,” “b;” ja, that's correct;

No German schonnet's e'er been besser sprecht.

So mix your “a”s and “b”s, your “b”s and “a”s

To suit your own convenience; any son-

Will have our professorial blessings on

If it is rhymed in one of these three ways.

The metre, length, and rhyme scheme now are def-

­La porte est ouverte—simply put la clef.

III

The only item still to be discussed

Is subject matter, and we think you'll find

That Love is one that you can always trust

(Though Milton did quite well On Being Blind).

So Love it is, the simplest of all top‑

Like “Frozen Love” or else “Love in the Trop-”

If you feel good, try “Love Is Here to Stay,” 

And if you don't, there's “Love Has Gone Away.”

Love's hot or cold; it moves like a thermom-

­It's in, it's out, it's either up or down;

It's in the country or it staved in town—

A Fair or Stormy, Wet or Dry barom-

So get a pencil and a piece of pa‑

And you're all set to start “The Sonnet Ca-”

© S. B. Botsford

Page 663-664

In The New Yorker

Book of Poems,

Selected by the Editors

Of the New Yorker,

Morrow Quill Paperbacks,

New York, 1974