A Sonnet....because I can't keep my mouth shut.

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I challenged my AP Lit class to write a sonnet--yep, 14 lines of iambic pentameter. And gave them the luxury of choosing which type of sonnet they wanted to create: Spenserian, Petrarchan, or Shakespearean. (I know, I'm such a generous teacher.) And then, before I could stop my overly-eager tongue, I told my students that I, too, would produce a sonnet. (Not a moment of brilliant forward-thinking on my part.) So I thought, in my effort to live doorlessly and in a moment of punishment-gluttony, I would not only write a sonnet to share with my students, I would share my sonnet with anyone brave enough to amble onto my Silent Isle (including those who arrive here by mischance). So I offer you my Shakespearean sonnet.


                How Deep the Vein

                The transcendence of poetry doth show

                How deep the vein of human feeling bleeds,

                And wide is that which o’er the seas doth blow

                Within the mind of man who daily reads

                The poetry of love and loss and joy

                And hope—which in the end is all we have

                To claim and climb aboard, our souls buoyed.

                Our eyes to heaven lift and we are glad

                And thankful for the gift of prose and verse.

                And oh! that all might read and see and feel

                What poetry puts forth to ‘scape the curse

                And offer as a dressing meant to heal.

                     The man deprived of words will never taste

                      Of freedom wrought from beauty. What a waste.