Task 5

I didn't see the play that you're talking about so I just wrote a sonnet about erm... stuff =D


I have become so comfortably numb,
The words you speak, I cannot hear them now.
The night calls my name, tells me to come,
My heart breaks for you, that I cannot allow.

I cut myself from the inside out,
I get scared but I wont crawl on me knees.
My head is always filled with so much doubt,
I get scared but I wont be begging please.

It's hard to keep an open heart and soul,
Open your heart and all you do is bleed.
I'm falling, I feel myself lose control,
On my own pain, guilt and misery I feed.

I know that look I see in your blue eyes
I wont stand around and wait for goodbyes.

Laura

I said i couldn't do this one but i had a go:

I always thought I'd never have
a handsome gentlemen caller
but what he done made me feel bad
and left me feeling much smaller
I should be like mamma,sweet and not shy
just how she was when she was my age
but im just not like that, I'm not gonna lie
Its feels as if im locked in a social cage
"Blue Roses, Blue Roses" my what a name!
the one boy who saw the inner me
but he was a player and i was the game
now the one thing i love is my glass menagerie
I'm just a girl who's too shy to shout
A cripple, a cripple- the candle's blown out

Laura

Glass animals with my feelings within,
That only comes out when no-one is near.
The clatter spoons and forks is a sin,
Facing the public is such a great fear.
With a mother that my life she controls,
Forced by her to go to business sessions.
Nothing left but to go for a long stroll,
She wants me to wed, what an obsession.
Protected of me, Tom chooses the man,
He looks after me with my broken limb.
Fights with mother doesn't go as it plans,
A smoke, a drink, is all he needs for him.
My life is destroyed by a so called Jim,
This heart of mine has been shattered by him.

Amanda

Outside I may seem like a right old nag
But all I really want is the best for them
I know I can be like a silly bag
But all I really want are happy gems
I love my children very much, I do
My handsome Tom and pretty Laura, Oh!
They do not see it but it is so true
My darlings, you just cannot sense or know
That it is there, my great undying love
From being babies silent in a crib
So happy, never could I get enough
Of gazing at you, this is not a fib
If only you could love as much as me
Your mother’s love is here, will always be.

amanda

i miss my old gentlemen callers
thats when i was somebody
my daughter is not a lost cause
but my son acts like a nobody
my husband just up and went
left me alone with our children
with almost no money ,just a cent
he acted like an evil villian.
thats it, now all hope is gone
laura dosent interest jim
and all my optimisim is withdrawn
from now on the future looks dim
amanda wingfield used to be someone
now all i can say is whats done is done

i no its a bit rushed but i went away with my parents and didnt know so sorry.

Amanda

I used to have so many callers, they
All used to come round daily after tea.
I used to dress up - highlight of their day.
And all they wanted was to visit me.
I did not opt for any of these men,
But settled for a telephone sales man.
He let me down again and then again,
So I said "I will do the best I can."
My Laura isn't visited at all,
But she has always been so sad and worn.
This Cinderella won't go to the ball.
My ugly duckling, she could be a swan!
I cannot save my broken family,
My Laura, and her glass menagerie

Laura

They misunderstand, judge and don't look on,
To see the real truth, reality, ME.
Why don't they see: my sanity has gone,
Sometimes I feel as if none will agree.
Settling down will be best for me and HER,
Is life not mine to gain rights to decide?
What else must ruin, destroy and occur,
For how much longer will I have to hide.
She says she's the idol of style and class,
He claims to always be 'at the movies'.
All I'll be needing is my world of glass,
No love, no freedom or unheard stories,
It's now me against the world; all can see,
Now, forever: my glass menagerie.

laura

Life is a box of insults set in glass,
My mother is fuelled by her burlesque past
Whilst I stand by and watch her freedom pass,
My friends are my foes all in one big cast.
Jim was my hope; my love for him was back
I thought Jim and me would forever last.
Tom was my glazier for when id crack
He was my ally for when I was lost,
The sins that I was stuck with,he had my back
He would protect me whatever the cost.
The one thing that mattered to me was Jim
Now he leaves whilst I sit there, im lost
For no man shall and watch my life by
All this warfare, whilst I watch their lives fly.

Tom

People don't know what troubles are inside,
a secret so deep lies inside within
my past revealed, no more is left to hide
my sister's leg, and all the arguing.
the crazy lady, lost in her gone past,
a grown woman, loves small glass ornaments
to smoke probably makes the pain go fast
control is the prize in work 'tournament'
i need the money, help with my mistake
what doesn't make my life so nice and bright?
family? what family is to take?
i'm going to watch a movie tonight.
but i am strong, and that is what i aim.
each time i look at the blank picture frame.

Amanda

Tonight I see my haunting dreams,
To be woken, to just another day.
From night to day nothing's as it seems,
My feelings, that painting both entirely grey.
I wish to see her like a beauty worth love,
Though there lies pain that's circling her.
His one son, blackened by his demon above,
Last thoughts; So leave! Just go! Become a blur.
My yesterday was full of diamonds, lights.
No days like this. There's never sad tuesdays.
Tomorrow could have been a beautiful sight,
Except here I am, suddenly able to say;
The past is gone, I cannot turn 'round,
So I will stand, awaiting longful sounds.

Tom

Work everyday, "movies" during the night.
Laura waits up, I'm home in a bad state.
Next morning, mum picking another fight,
Laura's different, what happens is fate.
The Man of the House is what I may be;
I try my best to take care of a lot.
I pay bills, yet I'm treated a baby.
Despite mums attempts, Laura's lost the plot;
Nobody knows the troubles that lay inside,
While she plays with her Glass Menagerie,
I search for more ways to hide
Still a kid (her hands are still slippery).
Now I've moved on, left both of them be
Laura, forgive me...I'm truly sorry...

laura

She didn’t understand my deep inner feelings
Always wants me to be something I ain’t
Screaming at plain me leaving me reeling
Making me work for hours till I felt faint
Just because she had all the fancy boys
It wasn’t my fault I had a disability
I want to be normal and play with toys
O why can’t she just face reality?
I will never be beautiful like her
She has everything she ever wanted
Only if I was perfect I often murmur
O why does it feel like I’m being haunted?
A normal mother appreciates her child
Unlike mine why can’t she see what’s on my mind.

Task 5: Your First SONNET

So many of you have either cracked this now, or, if you haven't then you have ALMOST done so.

I am REALLY very impressed. Best of all, some of you are managing to do so without sacrificing the power of your poetry itself.

This is the real challenge: a synthesis of CONTENT (choice of language and what it is about) and FORM (rhyme, rhythm etc.). In fact, you can look at it mathematically:

powerful CONTENT + disciplined FORM = effective POETRY

Please check the podcasts for an analysis of your efforts this week.


Now for this week's task - and it's a DIFFICULT one.

These are the rules of the English (or Shakespearean) SONNET:

1. It must be written in IAMBIC PENTAMETER (i.e. x5 dee-DUMs)
2. It will be 14 lines long, and consist of x3 quatrains and x1 final couplet
3. It will have a strict rhyme scheme (abab cdcd efef gg)

You should, by now, be familiar with the rules of IAMBIC PENTAMETER.

As for writing in three quatrains, well you have all written ONE quatrain (in both Task 3 and Task 4), so it is just a question of writing three different ones of these, which link together in subject matter to form ONE poem - a poem which is concluded by a couplet (i.e. two, rhyming lines).

And as for the RHYME scheme, I am sure you will be fine with this.

The challenge is putting all these things TOGETHER! (Click HERE if you want to find out some more tips on the building blocks of sonnets.)

And what should your sonnet be about? Well...

You have now seen The Glass Menagerie. You should choose ONE character from the play, and write a monologue/soliloquy of their thoughts. In other words, speaking as if you ARE your chosen character, you write a sonnet (in the 1st person) expressing your thoughts and feelings at the end of the play.

Simply call your poem Jim OR Tom OR Laura OR Amanda.

Here is my attempt:

Tom

She worked me like a puppet, string by string.
(A mother should not seize this much control.)
My inclinations did not mean a thing -
The Perfect Son, my mandatory role.
A tyrant in a dress, she tore apart
The family she claimed to hold so dear;
Her autocratic, suffocating heart
Left son and daughter helpless in their fear.
But daughter crumbles, crushed within her grip,
Incapable of any sort of fight,
While Shakespeare imitates his father's trip,
Pursues the distant moon and says goodnight.
I wish I could go back, but time is dead,
Just like the family within my head.