Category Archives: didactic

Elfmath Sonnet

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This is a sonnet form invented by Jose Rizal M. Reyes of the Philippines.
Very Sestina-like.
The defining characteristic is that you must use repeating end words in the rhyme scheme of any existing sonnet.
It is stanzaic, consisting of three quatrains and a couplet
Or                                           two quatrains and two tercets
It is written in iambic pentameter.
It uses WORD refrains in every stanza.
 Example poem
To Write an Elfmath Sonnet
To write an Elfmath Sonnet poets know
that they will never have to search for rhymes.
A word will rhyme with itself, that we know;
repeating words (required), will give you rhymes.
This sonnet makes demands that we use words
To end a line, so that they may repeat
because by rule, they must! Repeating words-
the specs define just where they must repeat.
But since the author specified the choice
of options that now number only three
we can’t let complex rhyming be our choice.
We’ll rhyme seven, or two or four- not three.
Since every time we end with couplet rhyme
I’m glad that I enjoy said couplet rhyme.
© Lawrencealot – February 25, 2014
Visual Template
Note: I created the template and poem when I thought the word
Pattern Jose set forth were requirements.  They are not, they are
Only examples.  You may choose your own word pattern.

Whimsical Sonnet

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This Sonnet form was introduced in a contest on Allpoetry by Numi_Earl_Grey
When I asked him to name the sonnet, this was his response.
Ah, a name – probably Wayne’s Honestly Intricate Mono-Stanza’d Imperfectly Coupleted Alternately-Layered Sonnet, or the WHIMSICAL Sonnet for short…
The following is his own introduction to the sonnet:
My friends, I shall impart this wisdom: True,
if life were thus parlayed in newish Sonnet form
we’d need some kind of rhyme and rhythm – New,
this form would break with stale traditions and the norm.
Now, why would we begin such daunting tasks?
Is it because we’re just some new iconoclasts?
Have we been drinking bourbon from our flasks?
Or do we wish to strip away old pretense masks?
The latter would be beneficial; though
you may not want such thoughts and views upon your shelves –
such innovative types (like us) forego
the safety nets that small minds cast around themselves.
My friends, you have a choice – remain secure,
or journey in, so we may walk the untrod shores…
New Sonnet Form Details:
Lines alternate between iambic pentameter and iambic hexameter (no, not sexameter!).
So that’s lines of ten and twelve syllables, all going da-daa-da-daa-da-daa…
Rhyme scheme is ABAB CCCC DEDE FF’ where F’ is a near rhyme to F.
I think the CCCC mono-rhyme stanza breaks the monotony of the ABAB, and the near rhyme at the end breaks the monotony of the perfect rhyming.
Here is the poem which he selected as the winner of the contest.
Poor William (Numi Sonnet)(Renamed Whimscal Sonnet)
Poor William’s not around to try this form—
And pity ’tis, for he would do it up right just!
And not, as I’m intending, flaunt the norm
By using Irish rime* to land on verse’s cusp.
Nor would the Master tempted be to write
In meter that’s so regular the reader might
While reading fall asleep, as if dim night
Had dawned and scared away all ambient delight.
No, he would teach a lesson with his wind
By breaking ev’ry rule rich pedants have proclaimed,
Such as the thought a trochee would rescind
The name ‘iambic’ from a line (as if ’twere lamed).
And I have tried to follow in his footsteps
Here, as opposed to following poetic goosesteps.
* Irish rime is what the Welsh call it;
 the Irish themselves call it perfect ‘correspondence’
or Comharda (the closest thing the Irish have to rime),
which allows substitution of like-sounding consonants,
such as t and p (e.g. ‘just’ and ‘cusp’).
(c) Gary Kent Spain, writing as Venicebard
Visual Template of the Form

Curtailed Quaintrelle

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A further development of (D.D. Michaels)  Quaintrelle form by Marcy Jarvis, aka ea on Allpoetry.com
it is a sonnet written as follows:
* Three four-line stanzas with syllable counts of 8, 8, 8, 6 in each stanza, written in iambic meter.
* The third line in each stanza contains internal rhymes on the 4th and 8th syllables in that line.
* The rhyme scheme for the first two stanzas is aa(bb)c dd(ee)c.
* The rhyme scheme for the third stanza is ff(gg)h. (Alternatively, the h line may rhyme with the c lines.)
* The final two lines have 8 syllables each, are in iambic meter, and rhyme as a couplet: ii.
Example Poem
Volta Optional     (Curtailed Quaintrelle)
What twisted thinking must I use
to try this form yet not abuse
the notion held that sonnets meld
a volta, or a twist?
I boldly pound this keyboard now,
I think I’ve found the lee just how
allowing me, somehow the glee
I’m apt not to resist!
I’ll let this sonnet, as it should,
meander through here looking good,
then without fail, right here, curtail
a volta!  Pound my fist!
The Nevada Sonnet: is the same.
Internal rhyme with sonnet name.
© Lawrencealot – April 23, 2012
Visual Template

Wyatt/Surrey Sonnet

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Although the sonnet began in Italy in the 13th century, Thomas Wyatt 1503-1542, was one of the first English poets to translate and utilize the form. He used thePetrarchan octave but introduced a rhyming couplet at the end of the sestet. His friend the Earl of Surrey also initiated more rhyme.

The Italian form was restricted to 5 rhymes. After Wyatt and Surrey the sonnet could have 7 rhymes. They also shifted the sonnet away from the slightly more intellectual and argumentative Petrarchan form, and gave new importance to the ending, declamatory couplet. This Wyatt/Surrey adaptation of the sonnet has not been officially named, at least I haven’t found an assigned designation yet. So for the sake of identification I call it the Wyatt/Surrey Sonnet.

The defining features of the Wyatt/Surrey sonnet are:
a quatorzain, written with a Petrarchan octave followed by an envelope quatrain ending with a rhyming couplet.
metric, primarily iambic pentameter.
the rhyme scheme is abbaabba cddc ee.
it is composed with the volta (non physical gap) or pivot (a shifting or tilting of the main line of thought) sometime after the 2nd quatrain.
distinguished by the declamatory couplet.

Pasted from <http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1045>

Example poem:

Sentient Sonnet (Wyatt/Surrey Sonnet)

The Petrarchan form stood intellectually
rigid for two hundred years, then it stretched.
Now five rhymes seemed not quite enough, so fetched
a couple more, yawned then moved experientially
away from arguments intolerably
constricted, to a poetry that etched
the notions, bards awaited, hands out-stretched-
to write a lighter sonnet, more flexibly.

For English writing folks this ushered in
the beginning of what has never stopped.
Traditionalists chins had surely dropped.
The morphing form was changing from within.

The purists arch their brows and speak disdain,
But sonnets have transformed and will again.

© Larry Eberhart, aka Lawrencealot, Oct 12, 2012

Visual template:

 

Visser Sonnet

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I am exceptionally glad to add this Sonnet form to my list.
Insofar, as I know it is the only sonnet form to be created by one of the States’ Poet Laureates.

Visser Sonnet – Internal rhyme only
Octet + Sestet
-Usually Iambic Pentameter
Rhyme scheme (internal only)    abbaabba cdecde
Originated by Audrae Visser,
Poet laureate of S. Dakota, 1974-2001

I found no specific column mandated for the internal rhyme
Apparently Volta is up to the poet.

Example Poem:
With Hidden Rhyme     (Visser Sonnet)

A Visser Sonnet may be hard to find,
or recognize when you do, for the rhyme
is hidden from your view except when read
aloud, then it will play.  It’s internal
and nicely tucked away inside each line.
It could be blank verse too, if iams rule,
for while that form if true, denies end-rhyme
it’s mute about the way one  acts inside.

Yet Visser earned our praise as she was South
Dakota’s poet queen- well, laureate,
the only one of such to make this mark.
Let us our glasses raise in toast and write
a sonnet now to bring this latent form
to life and add a touch of difference.

© Lawrencealot – November 2, 2012

Visual Template:

Tirrell Sonnet

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Tirrell Sonnet was invented by R.L. Leonard, aka Tirrell

A quatrazain of two couplets enveloping two tercets enveloping a quatrain.
Meter and voltra are at the poet’s discretion.

Rhyme Scheme: A1A2 bcb cddc bcb A2A1

Write a Tirrellet Sonnet

This line demands your very, very best.
These words encompass and corral the rest.

Like onion layers one upon the next
the couplets backed up by the tercet pair
are cover for the most important text.

It may not be a rhyme that rings most rare,
it’s just the core of what’s a Tirrellet.
a brand new form that A.P. won’t forget,
invented here for poets everywhere.

An autologic poem just reflects
the manner followed to the end; we’re there
now, when we gets the first two lines annexed

These words encompass and corral the rest.
This line demands your very, very best.

© Larry Eberhart, aka, Lawrencealot Oct. 15, 2012

Quatern Sonnet

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The original Quatern was a French form consisting of three,
four line stanzas and containing a couplet refrain.
As is normal with French poetry it was constructed using eight syllable lines.
No meter or rhyme scheme was specified.
The Refrain is the first line of the first stanza,
and becomes the second line of the second stanza,
the third line of the third stanza and
finally the last line of the last stanza.
The well known Australian poet Bruce Henderson
suggests replacing the final quatrain with a couplet,
thus making it “a little song”.

Quatern Sonnet Template
Note: NO Rhyme required, but ANY permitted,  I have shown common choices.

Example Poem:

Let’s write a new Quatern Sonnet

Eight syllables four of which slide
from each stanza by line they glide.
No rhyme required but here I tried.

No meter was specified, yet
for this single Quatern Sonnet
I’ve used iambic meter tet!
Insulted some back there I’ll bet.

Refrains can play like Quaterns do.
Hence naming should make sense to you,
but “sonnet” in Quatern Sonnet
Means fourteen lines in this guy’s  view.

We had the thought in our bonnet;
now we’ve penned a Quatern Sonnet.

(c) Lawrencealot – June 25, 2012


Visual Template:

 

Pope John XXIII Sonnet

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2 quatrains + couplet + quatrain
Generally Iambic Pentameter
Would lend itself well to Tetrameter
Volta Optional
2 Quatrains + Couplet+ Quatrain
Rhyme scheme: aaaa bbbb cc dddd
This is a form invented by Jose Rizal M. Reyes of the Philippines

Example Poem:

Papacy Pleasing Poetry      (Pope John XXIII Sonnet)

Now Jose’ chose to honor previous Pope,
by naming sonnet form with which to cope
when writing of some warm religious hope.
Oh, I expect you might expand its scope.

A pro-abortion poem ought not use
this form.  There are so many more to choose.
But satirists we know like to bemuse,
abuse, confuse and thereby, yes amuse.

The mono-rhyme will lend itself to play
with poems that are light and mainly gay.

Now since the Pope spread happiness and light,
this form can help you do so when you write.
Composed in tetrameter you just might
Deliver verse written to recite.

(c) Lawrencealot – October 31, 2012
 
 
Visual Template:
 
 

Philippine Stanza Sonnet (Previously called Luzvimninda Sonnet)

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3 quatrains + couplet
Generally Iambic Petameter
Volta at or following line 9
3 Quatrains + Couplet
Rhyme scheme: aaaa bbbb cccc dd
This is a form invented by Jose Rizal M. Reyes of the Philippines

Example poem:

Write a Philippine Stanza Sonnet   (Philippine Stanza Sonnet)

You cannot name this sonnet in Trochaic,
nor Iambic – either for heaven’s sake?
Four quatrains, each one mono-rhymed will make
this writing seem an easy piece of cake.

While Philippine will scan well on its own
and Stanza fits, like Sonnet, when alone
together three are far from metric prone.
I didn’t need to, I just like to moan.

But now the  iambs have been established well,
I have but one more factoid I must tell:
Using a tetrameter would be swell.
In monotetra rhyme it does excel.

So now we’ve done it, finally we’re all through.
I walked you through it  – now you write one too.

(c) Lawrencealot – Oct 31, 2012


Visual template:

 

Marshalline Sonnet

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The Marshalline Sonnet form is created by: AP poet; Mairi bheag.  
3 Quatrains + Couplet- 9 syllable Line
Generally Volta at or following line 9
Rhyme scheme:  abab cdcd efef gg
 
This is a wonderful form that allows us to use feminine words for end line rhymes. 
9 syllables per line with the following meter: 
iamb-iamb-iamb-amphibrach
Example Poem:
Write a Marshalline Sonnet
To write a Marshalline type sonnet
beware that physical internal
daDUM (five times) repeated on it
won’t fit into the Marshal’s kernel.
The kosher form induces clatter
by truncating the pentameter
by half a foot so lines end flatter,
but longer still than tetrameter.
Just nine syllables emphasizing
the lines all ending somewhat tepid
with feminine rhyme, realizing
that women often are intrepid.
This rhyme, and syllables persisting
Is stuff of what this form’s consisting.
© Lawrencealot – October 29,2012
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