Will you let me admit that i was wrong.
I want to say i'm sorry in a way.
Away from you makes me sing a sad song.
My mind is blank i don't know what to say.
As i began to talk my mouth went dry.
Im sorry please forgive and be my friend.
She then ignored me i began to cry.
I said, give me a smile,a hand to lend.
I tried to hide but i could still be seen.
I really need your friendship not your lies.
I made her sad but she was being mean.
This final time i will apologize.
I beg you please forgive me i can change.
I will not let our frienship out of range.
Hallo! First thing’s first: before I get onto even mentioning anything qualitative about the sonnet itself, I’ve got to take issue with your spelling/grammar. When you submit ANYTHING – homework, coursework, wordvoodoo tasks – you’ve got to check that you don’t have any basic, obvious errors. The most obvious one, with ‘What Lies Can Do?’, is the fact that ‘I’ remains uncapitalised except on line beginnings. On line six, ‘Im’ needs an apostrophe, and there’s a typo on line twelve (‘frienship’). Please do check for things like this before submitting work in future.
ReplyDeleteRight: nag over. In terms of the sonnet form, this is, to my mind, your best work yet, by quite some way. Well done! You’re getting ever closer to cracking iambic pentameter, and most of your lines are spot on. There’s still a couple of points where you need to look out for stresses (such as line four, ‘DON’T KNOW WHAT’), but overall this is great. This is a remarkable achievement, as iambic pentameter, common as it is, is also devilishly tricky.
I think you’re now certainly ready to move up to the ‘intermediate’ level – it’s (almost!) a shame we’re not doing more sonnet tasks, as I’d like to see you have a crack at it. To get up to the next level, I’d recommend experimenting with caesura and enjambment. All your lines are end-stopped, which means ‘What Lies Can Do?’ sticks a little over rigidly to that ‘du-DUM du-DUM’ rhythm. Using caesura and enjambment would give your poetry more of a flow.
I’d also try for a little more variation of lexis; half of these lines start with ‘I’. Unless there’s a poetic need for such repetition, I’d stick with the old adage; variety is the spice of life. You could also start experimenting with imagery (similes and metaphors, particularly). I think the closest you get to imagery in this sonnet is ‘I tried to hide but I could still be seen’ – it works on a literal level, but also a more metaphorical one; you know, “a lie will always catch up with you in the end”, that kind of thing. It’s also one of my favourite lines of the sonnet –the layers of literal/concrete and metaphorical/ambiguous meaning help achieve this.
So, all in all, a really, really good effort. I look forwards to reading how you respond to the next task!
Hi frizzy,
ReplyDeleteSarah's given you some nice comments on your poem as a sonnet already, all of which I agree with. Keep up the good work. I can tell you're working hard. :)
Overall, I feel that this poem is has much fewer detailed observations than your previous poems. It's fine to put that aside for a moment to concentrate on the sonnet's form, but in revision I would encourage you to think about details that could be added, or ideas that could be more closely examined.
For example, take the line "Away from you makes me sing a sad song" (first of all, we need another word here, like "being away from you makes me sing a sad song"). I think this line is a really good beginning point. I want to know more about this sad song. Could the poem itself be the sad song? What sort of melody would this "sad song" have? Would it sound like the engine of a car driving alone down a long stretch of road? Don't be afraid to push your imagination.
Or, how about the line "I tried to hide but i could still be seen." This is a really interesting idea. I want to know why the speaker is failing to hide, even though he/she is trying. This idea has the potential to be really visual (what are they trying to hide behind? what is the expression on their face?).
Just some ideas to get your creative mind flowing. Keep up the good work. :)
Maria