Kim Addonizio invented this form of the sonnet, calling it a sonnenizio. What you do is take a line—any line—from someone else’s sonnet and use it as the first line of your sonnenizio. You then repeat one word from that first line in each of the subsequent 13 lines. You end the poem with a rhyming couplet.
In this sonnenizio of mine (which is a good two years old), I’ve taken a line from John Berryman’s second “Sonnet to Chris” and repeated the word “turn” in each line. I changed it up a bit, as you’ll see with “external,” “taciturn,” “turnstiles,” etc. I almost called this poem “Turnips and Tangerines,” but eventually realized that leaving it untitled would be better than calling it that.
[As nude upon some warm lawn softly turn]
As nude upon some warm lawn softly turn
Your external gaze at the avalanche crackling
Down the taciturn house. All bear the drag
Of newly-polished turnstiles, so fearful
Of the internment that tingling brings. “An
Upturn in sales should mark the new calendar
Year, but the public should beware the return,
In April,” of easy nocturnes, lazy ears,
Listening to nothing but Saturnian odes, or else
Some stern warning about wasting your life.
Consider me a turncoat if you will, but I know
Where my loyalty lies. The turnverein is filling,
Friend, with tiny-breasted women: advise my attorney
Of our hasty plans to indict true love for eternity.
Pasted from <http://michaelschiavo.blogspot.com/2004/04/sonnenizio.html
My thanks to Michael Schiavo
Sonnenizio on a Line from Wendy Cope
I had this bird called Sharon. Fond of gin—
it could do the Gingerbread Man in different voices.
After a couple of gin slings, it could out-dance
Ginger Rogers from its perch. I played the harmonica
badly. Behind the scenes. Like noise from cotton gin
ruining the sunrise. I drank gin rickey until
I became a sore virgin, the losing end of a speech
impediment, gingivitis. It made me clean its cage
in my original D&G bathrobe and plastic clogs.
There, myna droppings juxtaposed gingersnaps.
The smell fizzed gin and tonic up my nose.
It called me names. It mocked me in pidgin.
Wretched bird. It even beat me in gin rummy.
Before the ginger cat ate it, I swear it said yummy.
Pasted from http://www.eclectica.org/v11n1/ang_word.html
Restated Specifications:
The Sonnenzio by be blank verse, or any rhyme pattern as long as it ends with a rhymed couplet.
