How I wrote my first sonnet
I have written a chunk of poetry over the years in a bunch of different styles. So when @raj808 challenged subscribers of the ink well to go outside of their comfort zone, I didn't really feel like anything I could write would give the desired effect. It's not that I write poetry particularly well, I just don't tend to care that much if what I write turn out to be bad. In other words, I'm comfortable writing bad poetry. So needless to say, I had difficulty finding inspiration for the challenge.
Anybody who has followed my poetry might remember that one of my peculiarities is that rarely share my poetry with my family even though I often write about them. You could say that discussing my poetry with them is something that is out of my comfort zone. So when my 12 year old daughter asked me for help on her poetry homework, I recognized it as an opportunity to push the boundaries of my comfort zone.
So I set to the task at hand which happened to be to create a sonnet. Actually, she just had to know what a sonnet was, but she wanted an example. At first I was going to show her some Shakespeare, then I suggested that the two of us write a sonnet together. Though I sometimes write form poetry, it isn't really my thing. So that's two strikes against my comfort zone and I was feeling good about it. My daughter reluctantly agreed.
For those who need to be reminded, a sonnet is an 18 line rhyming poem with a rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, efef, gg. Shakespeare's famous sonnet "Shall I Compare Thee To a Summer's Day" is a good example of a sonnet.
Here is the sonnetthat my daughter and i wrote.
Sonnet-
My dad and I wrote a poem
We wrote it together
We wrote it to a gnome
It was about the weather
He read it right away
As soon as he recieved it
He thought it was ok
But couldn't quite believe it
He wrote a sonnet back
But he never sent it
He said he lost his money sack
But instead he spent it.
Never write a poem
To an unworthy gnome
So there's our silly little poem. I hope it brings a smile to somebody. I'll probably use this opportunity to explore more poetry in the future.