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21 February 2019

Sonnets

We looked at sonnets this week. It's such a marvellous form for workshopping. Small, accessible, and the good ones are chock full of poetic devices. In this workshop we compared a Shakespeare sonnet with a contemporary sonnet. In the space between two small poems we were able to talk, in one way or another, about imagery, word choice, structure, image building, line breaks, all kinds of rhyme, musicality and rhythm, the volta, tone, transformation, resolution and unity. There follows a sonnet from Jan, written at the workshop;


Winter Garden

By Jan O’brien


All the ground covered in snow

not a piece of grass to be seen.

The sun bouncing off a pool

of water on the greenhouse roof.

Blackbirds looking for food.

Frozen water in the birdbath.

A robin hops onto the fence

then onto the table looking for food.

I put out some food, then sit

and watch them all fly down.

Thrushes, starlings, sparrows,

even a couple of cheeky pigeons

flying in to see if they can get food.

It won't be long for the snow to melt.

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