Transformation Audio :: (Personal, Off-Topic): Sonnet for Hannah, Christmas, 2008

You are welcome to adapt this poem for a child (the above was written for a teenager about to become an adult), if you wish. T.S. Elliot said: "Good poets imitate. Great poets steal." (Picasso said the same thing as it applied to fine art.) If you can use this poem, in your own way, to help support a child's (or adult's, for that matter) own aspirations and interests - it is important that the aspirations are theirs, not your own! - by all means steal it - or the idea of it, which is what T. S. Elliot, and Picasso, really meant. All I ask is that if you publish it anywhere, including posting it on the web, in a form where the original is still recognizable, that you acknowledge who gave it to you...me. That's not much to ask, and I gladly give it to you if it will help someone grow into or accept who they are as much more than they thought they could be.

Regarding language and word/concept choice: I believe, when writing a sonnet for someone, in going to the heart of the matter, their essential character and most cherished aspirations. A sonnet, to me, should be written in elevated language, should include beauty, beautiful words, and the awe of life, and the subject of the sonnet should also be elevated to the essential perfection that exists in the person, ignoring any petty human foibles that, after all, are a part of each and everyone of us (although more in some than others, admittedly, but in the case of Hannah, fortuitously not a significant issue).

For me, also, it is not religious - that is, confined to any religion - to include concepts of Heaven and God and Angels - nor is it pagan; rather, it is my poetic expression of my personal conviction that humans have the obligation and privilege of creating Heaven on Earth - that is what I believe Jesus was talking about when he said, "Heaven and Earth are One", and "As it is in Heaven, so shall it be on Earth": what we set in the Heavens - shared belief - so shall it manifest in the Earth - our lives and forms. A child, even a young adult, needs a parent or, lacking that, a mentor, who will share a belief in their ability to achieve fulfillment. I'm not talking about fame or fortune, I'm not even talking about selfish desires, I'm talking about a child excelling in whatever they are on Earth to do, whatever it is, so long as it in some way contributes to the wholeness of humanity. Presidents of Ignorance, Vice Presidents of Torture and Wall Street crooks need not apply.

For addressing children, especially, although I believe the same for addressing adults - it's just that adults can better weather a well-intentioned but misguided critique - but for children, even teenagers nearing adulthood, I believe in paying attention only to the positive, the uplifting, the best aspirations or qualities each one has. Nobody wants a poem that points out they have a messy room, choose bad friends or can't do math. This was something my wife taught me, but it came quite naturally to me once I understood the idea: that by giving attention to the best in a child, the best is encouraged to grow and express. By the same token, the praise must be rooted in what is really there, or it has a deflating effect - this means careful and close observation, perhaps casual conversation, to find out what is actually harbored in the person's heart or best displayed in their actions. In someone who has been abused, you might have to look for the tiniest clue first, for they will likely hide away very deeply what is most sacred to them.

Have you ever heard the saying, "It ain't boastin' if yuh done it"? Well, I can tell you that our four children are absolute marvels, and they have turned out so well in no small part because we were careful to observe what mattered most to each one and to give solid, but unobtrusive, support. This is not spoiling, for those of you who, like me, grew up with an abusive and criticizing parent, and might still carry those misconceptions about parenting modeled so thoroughly by a confused father or mother.

Finally, I generally like sonnets in iambic pentameter, ten syllables to the line, but often nine or eleven work just fine. The rhymes should be good words, not "hut" with "butt", and I try not to stretch for an artificial rhyme. For example, in Hannah's sonnet I had rhymed "invisible" with "a sybil", which was awfully clever and deliciously archaic, but, first, it didn't read out loud well - not an easy rhyme for the ear to catch on the fly - and second, while the archaic meaning of sybil is prophetess, the modern meaning that would be inferred by most would be that of "Sybil", the fractured personality - so I changed it. In those lines, "invisible" now rhymes with "sensible"; it reads nicely, catches the ear, and even though the meaning for "sensible" that I intend is somewhat archaic, the context helps the reader understand I mean the older meaning of "being sensitive to", not "practical".

As per rhyme scheme, I usually follow the Shakespearean, which has been argued should instead be named after Daniel, who set the example for Shakespeare, but in any case it is as follows: abab cdcd efef gg. The final couplet, by the way, is also known as a Heroic couplet, and in one sonnet I vary the rhyme scheme to make the third quatrain (the third four-line stanza) out of same-rhymed heroic couplets: eeee, so that sonnet's rhymes follow the scheme: abab cdcd eeee ff. Someday I plan to write one that is: aaaa bbbb cccc dd. I understand fully that the Shakespearean form usually has the best overall effect, the sustained suspense of the alternatively rhymed lines of the quatrains culminating in the satisfying rhymed couplet at the end, but sometimes the content calls for a different progression, as it did in the sonnet for Cameron.