Freebie Mondays: Poetry Hour Part 2

Last week, I mentioned a poetry challenge I set my friend Joe (aka Jchillyy on twitch). He created a wheel of mayhem for one of his streams, and I suggested several silly writing related tasks to be part of it.

My challenges were:
*Write a romantic haiku
*Write a humorous limerick
*Write a sonnet dedicated to our friend Bardowl
*Write a love letter to Gh0stpeppr (my husband)

In the spirit of fairness, I decided to undertake similar writing tasks on stream, aside from the love letter. My husband has received plenty of those from me over the years.

The results of the first session can be found here. They include several limericks and several haikus. Most of them are fun and silly rather than serious. But I greatly enjoyed the process, so I decided to run a second poetry stream.

Since we weren’t able to cover sonnets in the first stream, I devoted the entire second streaming session to the creation of sonnets. You can find the VoD here, if you’re interested in watching the poetry come together.

Since my suggestion to Joe was to craft a sonnet dedicated to our friend Bardowl, I decided to make that the subject of my first sonnet as well. I used the Shakespearian sonnet structure, which has a slightly different rhyming scheme than the traditional Italian sonnets. I chose this version mostly because I like the punchy nature of the little rhyming couplet at the end.

I should mention that I didn’t follow all the rules of sonnets. I didn’t worry about iambic pentameter, for example, as it felt too complicated for an early morning, fun-oriented stream.

Shortly after the wheel of mayhem shenanigans, I appeared on Joe’s stream to talk about a personal fear for one of his personal writing projects. The idea is that he will take my fear and turn it into a story. During the conversation, it came to light that my dear friend Bardowl and I have actually had a lot of similar experiences and share a lot of common interests.

Which, being on twitch, of course resulted in a humorous argument over which of us was the bootleg version of the other.

Since sonnets often introduce a twist or problem midway through, I thought it would be fun to use this as the subject of my Bardowl sonnet. I devoted the first half of the verse to her, then introduced myself as the ‘twist.’ I’m really pleased with my conclusion, however, and I think Bard will like it too.

Here is the sonnet in all its glory:

Beautiful night bird of lovely song,
Lifter of spirits and giver of cheer.
How it warms my heart when you come along.
When we cross wits it’s never drear.
And the chaotic secrets you adeptly deployed
Have saved many wounded souls from despair
But what star-streaked countenance appears from the void
Singing a similar tune and bearing familiar flair?
With matching light their experiences shine,
Leaving no method to uncover the fake.
How then to know which friend is thine
When looking too deeply makes the heart ache?
Put no stock in such hollow aesthetic
To have two friends of this nature is far more epic!

Writing this sonnet took a lot more brain power than I initially expected. Rhyming is really hard! And I especially found that switching off between rhymes instead of having the rhyming lines side by side was particularly difficult.

But I still wanted to try my hand at a second poem. And since I skipped the love letter, I thought it might be fun to essentially write fan fiction of Joe’s letter in poetry form.

This sonnet is purely silly. It’s main purpose is to sort of contribute to the ‘lore’ that has built up between streaming friends over time. I tried to incorporate as many elements of Joe’s letter as I could. And ultimately, it’s so fun and silly that I love it to bits!

Please enjoy the ballad of the Glizzy King and the Ghostly Pepper:

Sing, oh muse! of love pure and true,
Between a ghostly pepper and a glizzy king.
With breath-taking speed their connection grew
From the time they answered the first ping.
To put the rest of the world beyond reach,
King Glizzy spread toppings on the perfect bun,
And suggested the pepper run away to the beach,
Where the two could share a perfect day beneath the sun.
In only the finest glizzes did the two indulge,
While cool water broke over the shore in waves.
The ghostly pepper revealed a most impressive bugle,
And the two became love’s eternal salves.
And though they may one day suffer great loss,
They cherish the memory of their secret sauce.

Incidentally, you can see a dramatic reading of this sonnet by the Glizzy King here! (Plus an added bonus!)

There you have it! I’m not sure when I’ll have another chance to stretchy my poetry muscles. But I had so much fun with these that I’ll surely revisit the exercise again in the future!

What’s your favorite sonnet?