The Majesty of the Sea (Petrarchan Sonnet form)

Hi there!

I'm here because I am utterly embarrassed that I somehow failed to see your review of The Book Man and you definitely need a review in return. #ashamed

First off, you did a nice job sticking to the Petrarchan sonnet form. (Personally, I prefer this over your standard Shakespearean sonnet, as that kind tends to get too singsong fro the ABAB rhyme scheme.) What's really impressive here is that you managed to rhyme as needed, but without writing any of the awkward sorts of lines that usually occur in rhyming poetry as the poet struggles to find a word that rhymes with the previous line. There wasn't a single awkward or nonsensical line--you managed to rhyme without sacrificing meaning, which is one mark of a really strong poet.

You also had some awesome imagery in here. At the beginning I actually thought you were talking about a siren, which is also cool, and then as the poem progressed it became clear that you were talking about the sea (particularly at the end, of course).

Correct me if I'm wrong--I believe that Petrarchan sonnets are supposed to end on a first-person sort of note? In which case this is technically fine, but--it just sounded a little off when the "I" came into the poem, as it wasn't present before. Now, if I'm right and this is a requirement of a Petrarchan sonnet, don't worry about it. However, if it's not a requirement--I mean, I think the sentiment if fine, but perhaps if you talked in third-person about the sailors (i.e., "their hearts long" rather than "my heart longs") it would seem less...not out of nowhere, exactly, but it just threw me.

But maybe that's just me. I see no one else mentioned that in their reviews, so it might just be me.

Thanks again for reviewing The Book Man, and sorry I didn't thank you sooner!

Blue

I really appreciate that you worked within the boundaries of an Italian Sonnet, using the abbaabba cdecde format, however most sonnets are not actually two stanzas, but the change in rhyme indicates the change in section, along with a change in subject matter or what the academics of poetry typically call a turn. In this poem you do show some eloquence in it's habit, changing form talking about Mother Sea's destructive nature, to her pull on sailors and their self-destruction by needing to sail. This works wonderfully with talking about her temper right out the gate in your first line of the sestet.

Some criticisms:
While you provide us with a great visual, you have messed up in a few places with the iambic pentameter. "of the" for instance, is two down beats, along with "white teeth" being two up beats compared to "and." Personally I don't really think sticking to every letter of a form is the best way to go any longer, considering we don't naturally talk in IP and IP tends to get weird sounds like "the poor damned souls of sailors she has thrown" when naturally we would say "She has thrown the poor damned souls of sailors/to the dead eyes and white teeth of the shark." Basically what this is, is putting the direct object as the subject of the sentence, which makes it seem odd. Today we typically speak with the direct object in the slot after the verb.

Your use of capitalized letters also kind of throws me off. Though you have some wonderful enjambment, like the sentence quoted just before with the flipped direct object, you don't let us read it as a sentence due to the capitalized first letter of the lines. This is a stylistic choice, and while I disagree with it as a style, for the most part, I understand that you're choosing to use it. I would still strongly recommend you try taking this poem and just capitalizing the first letter of each sentence, instead of each line. This could/should make it read easier. Try asking people who are willing, to read it for you out loud [record it if they're on here and send it to you] with the caps at each line, then have someone new read it with the caps at each sentence. You should see a difference between the flow. Personally I know when I see a capital, I think my sentence has ended, so I pause, which puts some awkward points of understanding before I get to the end of the sentence.

Also a note on beats: If you have a multisyllabic word, there are typically not two beats right next to each other with the same stress. This means mul-ti-syll-a-bic goes up, down-up-down-up. which can be super helpful when trying to mimic IP.

Sorry I couldn't make this longer and go into details about the word choice and overall syntax of the poem, but I'm kinda running late. <3 If you want me to talk about sentences and so forth for meaning, send me a pm and I'll go into it by editing this review.

Kya with a review

That's amazing! The literary devices you use are wonderful! It gives a completely different view on something many are familiar with, but is still easily recognized. My favorite line is "Like a bird who longs to be wholly free". The grammar is sound and so is spelling.

As this is the first thing I have read on this website, I don't have much to compare it against, but I'd have to say this is the best thing I've read thus far. It really was quite excellent.