The Modern Sonnet

The Modern Sonnet

These days the sonnet has taken on a modern perspective; unlike in the days of Shakespeare when sonnets spoke mostly of love in all its particulars, sonnets written these days are capturing every aspect of life and thought.

They're written with a rhyming fourteen line scheme and swagger to foot and meter. But, the true beauty of the modern sonnet lies in the shortness of its length, about a minute in time to read a standard one.

These days poets are promoting their books by this notion of shortness, calling them, an hour of verse. Sixty poems at a minute each creates an hour of reading if done with no interruptions, that's the hook. Who would read a poem just by mouthing written words ? Sonnets are as addictive as most other types of written verse; they too draw the reader in to read again, to capture a reader's mental state, to pause and reflect a proposition the author presents.

Authors are not fools neither are publishers. They know purchasers of poetry books are looking for writings that have a chance to jog their minds and titillate their emotions. The sonnet tries to do this in only sixty seconds, at least this, in a quick read.

Ronald C. Downie