All forms

Fourteen lines, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

Sonnet

A sonnet is an argument with music in it. It gives a thought enough room to change its mind.

Try Sonnet

The shape

  • Fourteen lines, traditionally close to iambic pentameter.
  • This version uses ABAB CDCD EFEF GG as a working rhyme map.
  • The turn often arrives around line nine, with the couplet making a final pressure point.

A good place to use it

Love, doubt, contradiction, grief, or any subject that becomes more interesting when complicated.

Try this

  • Write the final couplet before the opening quatrain.
  • Give the poem a claim, then argue against it.
  • Let the rhyme change the sentence instead of forcing the sentence to obey.

A small example

I kept the key though I had left the door,
Because the lock remembered more than I.

Keep in mind

  • Fourteen lines of roughly ten syllables — iambic pentameter, da-DUM five times.
  • The turn usually lands at line 9: the argument changes or complicates.
  • The last two lines rhyme with each other and land the whole thing.
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