Sestina Sonnet

The Sestina Sonnet is written in ten-syllable lines(usually iambic pentameter) and is structured with three stanzas; three quatrains(four-line stanzas) and a concluding couplet(a two-line stanza). The interesting thing about the Sestina Sonnet is that it actually doesn’t rhyme. It retains the Sestina qualities by repeating the end-words of lines throughout the piece.

The four words that end the lines of the first stanza, end the lines of the other two stanzas, in a different order each time. The last stanza, uses two of those words per line, with one in the middle and one at the end of the line.

Example Poem:

Tell Me of Your Anger in Whispers (Sestina Sonnet)

Don’t start a message with an angry word
for voice will carry tones that are not right
for saying what is needed to be heard.
An angry start can last until the night.

Daytime travails get pushed away at night
and ‘ere we sleep all problems should be heard.
Tell me I’ve goofed without an angry word.
We’ll fix it, regardless of who is right.

Experience shows that you’re usually right
unless you misunderstood deed or word.
A certain magic when we talk at night
yields solutions from voices that are heard.

You will be heard and things will work out right.
Tell me at night by way of whispered word.

(c) Lawrencealot – November 7, 2012

Visual template:
In previous examples I have show most set for Iambic so let’s be different here.

Blank Verse Sonnet

The Blank Verse Sonnet is simply a sonnet written in Blank Verse. It has all of the features of the sonnet without rhyme. Although Blank Verse is often used in narratives, it can also adapt to the lyrical sonnet. Blank verse is a strophic sonnet in iambic pentameter. Sonnets without rhyme can be traced back to Edmund Spenser.
The defining features of the Blank Verse Sonnet are:
  • metric, written iambic pentameter. In English most sonnets are written in iambic pentameter but there are some that occasionally stray from the norm. To metrically stray is not an option with the Blank Verse Sonnet.
  • unrhymed.
  • a quatorzain with no stanza breaks.
  • composed with a pivot or turn which logically arrives in the 2nd half of the sonnet.
 
Example:
 
Tell Me of Your Anger in Whispers ( Blank Verse Sonnet )
 
Should you be moved to speak in anger, love,
I ask that first you test your words alone.
You’ll want to be assured your meaning’s clear.
If meaning’s very clear, then is it fair?
Is it essential now that blame be found?
Perhaps, the words should simply disappear
for now, until your anger can abate.
If blunders I have made have caused upset
I’ll be contrite and wanting to amend.
Let’s lie together in our bed tonight
and you in dulcet tones will make me know
whatever actions I should contemplate.
I’ll listen, think, and I will understand.
Speak whispers to me love, I’ll make it right.