[Yves S L]

Cameron,

Wow! Thanks for giving so much of yourself in the comment. I am not going to discuss too many details of the poem here, because I want it left open for each reader, but feel free to PM if you want to chat about this or other stuff.

Why does it take you back to tender 16?

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Sensual, sexual, wistful and personal, a delight. You have captured music which is often missed in slavery to scansion.

An absolutely lovely sonnet Yves.

Jan

[Hilary Biehl]

I don't have much that's useful to add, but I like the unexpectedness of the "no" ending.

[Yves S L]

Hello Jan,

Yeah, how does one fine music in the scansion? I am glad you liked it.

Hello Hilary,

Your comments would be useful because they come from you, irrespective of what anyone else has already said. I am happy the turn worked for you.

Hello All,

This might be as close as I get to writing my own ideal version of a Romantic sonnet. I am honestly surprised I did not get more push back (how successful is this sonnet really?). Since I am always experimenting sonnet form, I never quite know how a given sonnet might be interpreted sans the context of all the other sonnets I have written.

Yeah!

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Yves,

I am not sure if you meant that rhetorically none the less I shall elaborate. Many a poem can satisfy the dictates of metre but a finer ear is needed for the music and you have put music into this sonnet over and above any other accomplishment here.

Often the music lies in the accent, dialect or even the mother tongue of the writer and flows through usage into the words on the page. Of course it also depends on the earwitness. Globally, we are often divided by our common tongue.

Regards,

Jan

[Yves S L]

Hello Jan,

So I took your initial comment in many directions but did not elaborate because you did not elaborate.

For me each person has their own music of spoken English, partly reflecting their own emotional and mental rhythms, and especially each poet has their own music of spoken English that gets expressed within the many levels of patterning that exists in poems. In terms of stuff like dialect, accent, mother tongue, I did find myself pushing the idiom in a certain direction slightly away from how I would normally speak (you might call it "mannered").

Being able to write lines that scan is just the first basic skill in rhyme and meter, and then skills mount on top of that basic skill which allows various "musicalities", but a person has to be able to make the aural distinctions necessary to bring about different aural effects.

Yeah!

[Alessio Boni]

Very exquisite and, to be honest, I agree with Clark's response, mostly on the fact that is truly echoes the verses of Keats, but even more than him, one of Moore's juvenile poems which follow closely related themes as yours, but maybe with a more jolly tone.

It stays faithful to the metric and form, although I thought a sonnet would originally consist of two quatrains and two tercets, but that doesn't really matter I guess. More then anything, however, and although this might be a stupid detail, I am beguiled by the very easy transition from verses 5 - 7 in which the narrator shows himself to be the jasmine flower, and "How soft you land on me!" is the only indication to such, thus avoiding the need of actually saying who the narrator is in a potentially coarse way.

I know. It's a very minimal part of the poem, but this peculiarity, however minimal or major it is to the rest of the poem itself, which, as I have said above is a fancy's craft, does strike the chord for me!

Bravo!

[Yves S L]

Hello Alessio,

I am still quite surprised that this poem resonates with folk here on Eratosphere.

Which Moore poem are you thinking of? I am not familiar with the writer so I am curious of the echoes you are hearing.

With the Keats and Moore comparisons, I am very much taking this as my Romantic sonnet.

Thanks for your comments.

[Alessio Boni]

You'd do right to think of it as your Romantic poem!

I was thinking many of the Odes of Anacreon from Moore definitely fit your poem, and it's a rather short collection so I'd recommend an easy reading of it.

Then there's some other poems like 'To Julia', the one that starts with 'Though Fate, my girl, may bid us part' or another by the same title which starts with 'Oh! If your tears are giv'n to care!'. There's countless others which I myself an unfamiliar with as I'm actually reading my oxford edition of his poetical works right now. But I'll be sure to send others if I find them!

Your theme reminded me of his, but, like I said, he has a much more ballad like jolliness to his poems, and sometimes, is even satirical. Although you both share eroticism.

[Yves S L]

Hello Alessio,

I did once post a triolet that was closer to what I have seen of Moore's aesthetic, but it was not particularity well received here, though others liked it elsewhere.

Yeah, I supposed that transition landed softly!

Thanks for the references.