one of the things about the sonnet that has interested me over the years I've been writing is that
it allows a kind of freedom which other forms perhaps don't—
in writing the octave, one is in a position of the normal poet writing the normative poem, i.e. a kneeling obsequious beggar, pleading with the reader, trying to please the reader, groveling our hearts out to smooth ease their way into and through the first eight lines—
but then with the sestet, the poet can abandon that humble act, and can in effect say to the reader, fuck you, did you think that I was going to cater to you all the way through, to kowtow to you for the entire 14 lines? Ha!—here in the sestet I can do as I will, and you're powerless to prevent me—
I know you mopes won't stop reading no matter what outrage I play here in MY six lines—
Whereas the non-sonneteer writing the average poem must try to please the reader for its entire length, especially with verses longer than 20 lines or so, fearful that s/he the reader can stop reading at any point especially if they glance ahead and see that your piece is going to go on for another page or two—
But with the sonnet, really, I think, most readers who make it through the octave will at least start on the sestet and once moiled in its sticky six-essence will probably say to themselves well what the hell it's only 3 or 4 more lines I might as well finish the fucking thing—
they'll read your bloody sonnet all the way through in spite of, despite whatever tricks and joicks in haps of tic-wreck shroudburst you've thrown in to satisfy your own arbitrary selfish whims,
the sestet crowns you Coriolanus Caligua again.
There is where you get to twist the nose of that snotty sonnet-reader.
///
it allows a kind of freedom which other forms perhaps don't—
in writing the octave, one is in a position of the normal poet writing the normative poem, i.e. a kneeling obsequious beggar, pleading with the reader, trying to please the reader, groveling our hearts out to smooth ease their way into and through the first eight lines—
but then with the sestet, the poet can abandon that humble act, and can in effect say to the reader, fuck you, did you think that I was going to cater to you all the way through, to kowtow to you for the entire 14 lines? Ha!—here in the sestet I can do as I will, and you're powerless to prevent me—
I know you mopes won't stop reading no matter what outrage I play here in MY six lines—
Whereas the non-sonneteer writing the average poem must try to please the reader for its entire length, especially with verses longer than 20 lines or so, fearful that s/he the reader can stop reading at any point especially if they glance ahead and see that your piece is going to go on for another page or two—
But with the sonnet, really, I think, most readers who make it through the octave will at least start on the sestet and once moiled in its sticky six-essence will probably say to themselves well what the hell it's only 3 or 4 more lines I might as well finish the fucking thing—
they'll read your bloody sonnet all the way through in spite of, despite whatever tricks and joicks in haps of tic-wreck shroudburst you've thrown in to satisfy your own arbitrary selfish whims,
the sestet crowns you Coriolanus Caligua again.
There is where you get to twist the nose of that snotty sonnet-reader.
///
