Geometric Poetry

When it comes to writing poetry, I cannot produce anything of quality without a strict structure to follow.  That is why I love writing sonnets so much; they always come out sounding better than you imagined them to.  They take a lot of work but somehow manage to make you feel like it did all of the really tough parts for you.  

There are so many beautiful components that have given sonnets their place in the literary world, which is why I was quite upset by Foster's chapter on sonnets in How to Read Literature Like a Professor.  Foster spends a far too significant amount of the chapter making the fact that a sonnet is shaped like a square sound like it's deserving of suspense and aw.  But, really though, who cares what a poem is shaped like if it doesn't fall into the category of concrete poetry?  Sure, it doesn't hurt to mention the similar width and height of a sonnet, but concrete poetry depends on the shape of the poem itself to amplify meaning and even give the poem its entire purpose.  The square shape of sonnets is partially given by the use of iambic pentameter, which is a very important part of reading and analyzing poetry, yet Foster deems this topic rather irrelevant (???) and trips right over it and into the topic of line groups (which I will admit is much more interesting and relevant than the overall shape of the sonnet).

Congratulations, you can recognize a sonnet by its shape.  Now how are you going to read it in a way that would make the author feel like you've understood the passion he or she has put into writing it? Let's focus on that a bit more.

To be honest, I haven't read many non-Shakespearean sonnets before now.  I went on a hunt for some new ones and found a plethora of sonnets from around the world.  I particularly liked one from the Russian philologist and writer Vyacheslav Ivanov, who writes poetry for fun in his spare time.  His sonnet titled "The Holy Rose" caught my attention with its imagery and slightly strange words.  Here is "The Holy Rose":

THE HOLY Rose her leaves will soon unfold.
The tender bud of dawn already lies
Reddening on the wide, transparent skies.
Love’s star is a white sail the still seas hold.
Here, in the light-soaked space above the wold,	5
Through the descending dew the arches rise
Of the unseen cathedral, filled with cries
From the winged weavers threading it with gold.
Here on the hill, the cypress, in accord
With me, stands praying: a cowled eremite.	10
And on the roses’ cheeks the tears fall light.
Upon my cell the patterned rays are poured.
And in the East, the purple vines bleed bright,
And seething, overflow…. Hosannah, Lord!

When I started reading the poem, I had to remind myself that the author is Russian and the sonnet was not originally written in English.  I didn't have much luck finding the original Russian version, but I guess I would have even worse luck understanding the original had I actually found it, considering I don't know much Russian beyond "my name is Hannah" and "I am allergic to wheat."  I had a hard time reading The Alchemist with full confidence in the words on the page because I knew that someone had translated the book from Portuguese to English and undoubtedly lost some of the meaning in the process.  Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsk, the translators of Ivanov's sonnet, deserve some recognition for (if not preserving the poem's meaning in its entirety) piecing together a sonnet with impressive diction and rhythm.  

"The Holy Rose" is grouped into an octave and a sixth, which seems to work just fine with the flow of the poem.  At first, I assumed that the "rose" in question was a woman.  However, a closer read gives me the sense that the rose is the sun rising.  It must be a rather overwhelming and humbling sunrise if it drives the author to call himself a cowled eremite in a cell (a hooded, God-fearing hermit), unless he is referring to the cypress... I haven't quite figured that one out.  Either way, he's building up the anticipation and beauty of the sunrise so steadily with each line that I can just imagine the narrator being knocked over upon seeing the sun come up over the horizon, emerging from an "unseen cathedral" (I love that part).  My favorite excerpt upon first reading this sonnet was the purple vines bleeding bright in line 13, but the image described in lines 6 and 7 makes my head hurt, it's so good.  This is one poem I wouldn't mind keeping around.