Comments on: A sonnet in praise of sonnets

By: Ike

Ike — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:05:36 +0000

The sonnet is the sudoku of words.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:10:29 +0000

cold pizza: I like your style.

By: cold pizza

cold pizza — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:45:42 +0000

Frosting my English course:

Some say this class will end in “A”s
Some say in “C”s
From what I test on other days
I’d like to think that I’d make “A”s
But if it brought me to my knees
I think I know enough of school
To say that for my passing, “C”s
Are also cool
And I’d be pleased -cp

By: kungfu

kungfu — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:17:01 +0000

Frost?

zzzzzzzzzzzz

By: Lame-R

Lame-R — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:57:23 +0000

Bravo! For both the original post and the responses! Expertise in language is invaluable, not just for communication but also for simple thoughts. The greater the mastery of language, the more profound your thoughts may be.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this until well after my school years, so all my English classes were dismissed as a waste of time. “If only I knew then what I know now” sums things up nicely.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:57:25 +0000

ZZMike: About memorizing poetry---I wrote a post on that a while back.

By: ZZMike

ZZMike — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:40:14 +0000

Some people say that the rules restrict creativity. I just point to the sonnets of Shakespeare and the fugues of Bach.

Jamie makes a good point about “facilitating memory”. Not too long ago, schoolkids were given lots of poems to memorize. More than a few still stick with me (“T’was brillig…”, “Into the valley of death/rode the six hundred”, Kilmer’s “Tree”, some of Kipling…

I’ve always remembered [most of] G. M. Hopkins’ “The Grandeur of God”. The imagery is remarkable.

Long about the 1960s or so, we discovered that schoolkids could remember many lines of then-popular songs – but not much else.

Maybe it’s the structure that makes poetry easiesr to remember, but I think it’s also the imagery – the poetic part.

By: Promethea

Promethea — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:53:52 +0000

There’s a lot of talent here on neo-neocon’s wonderful website.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:20:45 +0000

It’s lovely to start my day unexpectedly reading poetry instead of mere prosaic commentary. Hats off to Neo, Jamie Irons and Cold Pizza!

By: Perfected democrat

Perfected democrat — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:20:15 +0000

Once upon a time there was a man who would make a rhyme,
but now knows a rhyme alone is just a sign
of thinking overtime to sound sublime,
now neo-neocon has taught us the sonnet is a sign
of such greater depth and sum, that less might only be inept, though fun….