Faith
I love that there is a God that never
Fails. To know the maker of everything.
Who loves and is love and will forever.
To give much in return for you to sing.
In complete surrender and with all I
Have to give. Yes it was the over flow
Of your grace that kept me in relation
With you. But the day when your glory shows
Those who knew will be in celebration.
Everlasting God forever more, will
You be a rock once more. For me: shelter
From such a stormy world. For me a still
Peace, through the worst of times. For Me: leader
When my path was hard to find. I love you.
Atheism
I hate when people try to make me one
Of their religious beliefs. Always
On my case. If I was in search of some
Kind of God a church would be in my days
Routine. Yet I do not wish to be seen
In one. When my time comes I highly
Doubt this view will change. Atheism means
I am keen to show theists the lively
way of existence. Carefree a life full
and lead only by me. However they
wish not to hear. So what can I do for
those who do not want to know. Always say
‘God loves you’ but God does not know anymore.
When I was young I was naive not now.
Hi JESUSCHILD,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your work for the first time. You have clearly grasped the conventions of a sonnet- you have stuck well to its form of 14 lines each with ten syllables. Your chosen topic of Faith and Atheism is a challenging and interesting, as it is one that is heavily debated causing people to hold strong opposing views.
The tone of ‘Faith’ is a clear contrast to that of ‘Atheism’, the narrator here is accepting and loving. My favourite lines were ‘For me: shelter from such a stormy world…For me: leader when my path was hard to find.’ As I felt these lines show a clear juxtaposition between the narrator’s life with God’s ‘shelter’ and a true ‘path’ and a ‘stormy world’ without God. The wording of these lines is almost hymn-like. It is interesting that you have written in a form that is often associated with romantic love to show someone’s love for God.
You have stuck well to the metre required for a sonnet, yet at time your rhyme scheme slips from its regular ABAB- such as with lines 5 and 7 and 9 and 11, which should rhyme for a stricter adherence to the sonnet form. Your last two lines could also be made into a rhyming couplet to create a traditional end to a sonnet.
I noticed that there is a clear change in mood between the octet and the sestet of ‘Faith.’ Your first eight lines focus solely on the narrator’s personal love for God, yet after your eighth line the combined love for God of all those with faith is explored and the mood changes from one of deference to celebration: ‘But the day when your glory shows those who knew will be in celebration.’ All the best sonnets have a change in mood/tone between the octet and the sestet and this is often difficult to achieve, so well done!
I do feel however that the restrictive form of the sonnet has sometimes hampered the meaning of some of your lines. Such as ‘Yes it was the overflow of your grace that kept me in relation with you.’ I feel that this line has lost its meaning slightly due to you having to meet the required amount of syllables per line, perhaps you need to rethink the word order of this phrase to make its meaning clearer. I was also a bit confused by the line ‘Will you be a rock once more,’ as the way you have phrased this is like a question, yet there is no punctuation to indicate that it is!
Your second sonnet ‘Atheism’ is a strong response to your first, the tone of this poem is clearly much more sceptical and self-focussed whereas the narrator in ‘Faith’ appeared quite selfless. It is interesting how just the first two words of each sonnet show this clear difference in views: ‘I love’ and ‘I hate.’
I loved the way that ‘Atheism’ seems to speak straight to the reader, almost as if it is a monologue. The everyday language you use makes the voice of this narrator seem very real. I found your line ‘Carefree a life full and lead only by me’ interesting as in modern Britain, where the number of people who attend church has declined rapidly in the last century, this line brilliantly encompasses the modern day attitude of some- that only they are in control of their lives and that their lives are ‘full’ without any spiritual dimension.
You need to be careful of you number of syllables per line. Mainly you stick to ten per line, yet a few lines of your second sonnet alter slightly, such as lines 2 and 6 which have nine syllables and line 13 which has an extra syllable. I feel that you perhaps need to make the meaning of your last few lines a bit clearer, ‘Always say ‘God loves you’, but God does not know anymore.’ Do you mean ‘They say’ as in those who believe in God say ‘God loves you?’
Overall you have shown that you have a great understanding of crafting sonnets. Your work has great potential and I look forward to reading more of your work!
Shadi
The Choice of Faith Vs Atheism as opposites as very interesting, especially as Spooky21 chose Faith vs Doubt. Your concept of faith is very much driven from the religious perspective, and your language use reflects that, which is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteYou've got some great sentences, beautiful use of language, especially:
“For me a still Peace, through the worst of times.”
You could make pauses more obvious with commas. E.g For me, a still peace, through the worst of times.”
Your language use is great, the religious language of the pulpit really fits the theme of the first sonnet, but you haven't completely fit the rhyme scheme.
Also, Sonnets tend to encourage writers to shun sentences that make sense so that they can fit the rhyme scheme, so be careful!
The first line of Atheism doesn’t make much sense. ‘Try to make me one of their religious beliefs’. It sounds more as if God is talking and is upset that humans are worshipping him! A good way of checking the coherence of your sonnet is to type it out as if it was prose.
‘Always on my case’ has a nice informal feel to it, which contrasts cleverly with the formal religious language of Faith.
You’ve got a great sense of rhythm and rhyme within the individual sentences- for example ‘Carefree, a life full and lead only by me.’ I’m very eager to see what you can produce in prose because these lines are beautifully constructed. I wonder if you struggled a bit with saying what you wanted within the construct of a sonnet? It might have been a bit too limiting.
Well done, and looking forward to your next exercise!
Hello – glad to be moderating you. I was really interested to read this first piece of work from you.
ReplyDeleteYou’ve got a very strong sense of metre and rhythm here – and an impressive way of making it seem effortless. This really struck me as it’s difficult to do – and even though, technically, the first line of “Faith” doesn’t follow the strict de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM formula (you’ve rather neatly used two downbeats in “that there” in the place of one), it works, and doesn’t interrupt the rhythm.
Just a grammatical point – I know it’s hard to make everything work at once, but the line “Who loves and is love and will forever” should strictly be “and will BE forever”... Unfortunately, even within tight poetic form, you need to make sure that what you’re saying would make perfect sense outside of the poem – and that extends most particularly to spelling, punctuation and grammar.
I like the enjambment of “For me a still / Peace” – this is quite deftly managed; and I also like the simplicity of the last phrase, “I love you” in this context (normally I’d shy clear of anything so outright and blatant, particularly with “love”, but given the tone of the poem I think this works). The last two lines, though, should rhyme.
The rhythm falls down a little in “Atheism”. Read line 1, spilling over to line 2, aloud to yourself: “one / Of their religious beliefs” is all part of the same phrase, so the reader reads it as such; even though the lines independently are iambic, the effect as a phrase is to have “one of their re-LIG-ious be-LIEFS”. See how many unstressed syllables are clustered?
You’ve taken some nice risks here in the voice: “Atheism means / I am keen to show theists the lively / way of existence” could sound clumsy, but here actually sounds vernacular and realistic. It’s a shame your punctuation is missing in the last line – you need a semi-colon, dash or colon, or even a heavier full stop, after “young”; as it is, it sounds rushed.
One of the most impressive things with these sonnets is the way in which you’ve really engaged with the argument of the two sides: both voices have thought about their argument and are convincing, so the poems as a pair make the reader really think.
Well done with this – really looking forward to reading your next piece.
Penny