Writing a Sonnet Oh yes, you can!

Rules of a Sonnet 14 lines 10 syllables in each line Turn, or volta, around line 9 Rhyme scheme (abab, cdcd, efef, gg)

Write a metaphor on your topic in the first quatrain

Word Bank Make a word bank about your topic! List all the words you can think of that have anything to do with your topic

Writing Your Sonnet Brainstorm a theme/topic/subject Quatrain 1: express main theme and metaphor Quatrain 2: expand the metaphor/give examples Quatrain 3: add a twist or conflict (PERIPETIAline 9 often starts with the word “but”) this is the TURN! Quatrain 4: couplet- resolve and wrap up the conflict. Leave the reader with a new way of looking at the theme.

Shakespeare “Sonnet 18”

Scott Ennis “Death of a Sonnet Writer” He turned the fourteenth glass and said, “Begin.” and I had fourteen minutes left to live; and I had fourteen unrepented sins, and fourteen people whom I would forgive, and fourteen unread books upon my shelf, and fourteen loves I knew I’d loved in vain, and fourteen dreams I’d kept within myself (the fourteen I’d most wanted to explain.) But fourteen minutes quickly passed away. I filled my pen with fourteen drops of ink- the fourteenth glass had offered one delay; and fourteen final grains retained the brink. This sonnet flowed like fourteen final breaths- the fourteenth line, the fourteenth grain, then death.

“Baby Boy” by Jennifer Kohut Baby Boy A parent knows their child will live longer Than they will have time to watch grow and thrive Childhood is a stage of hugs and laughter Adolescence a phase just to survive We begin to take moments for granted When we live our days and nights with family And so the stage slowly becomes slanted As worries expand past normality but I know he will die before I do there will be nothing anyone can say my baby was born with a timer on hands ticking every second of the day each moment is so much more precious to me I know what life is without family

Lines with 10 syllables The night was icy but I didn't mind. Your fingerprints were all around the room. My father never tells me what he thinks. There's something hiding underneath my bed. You changed your name but couldn't change your face. I couldn't think of anything to say.