Hail: Word Sonnets [Canada]:
Hail is a collection of 15 “word sonnets,” a technique or form purportedly developed by Augustus Young. In a –excuse the pun- formal ‘word sonnet,’ a poet uses 14 lines (as per tradition, but completely avoiding division into quatrain, sestet, octet, and the like) to execute his poetic. “Word sonnets” also have no rhyme or metrical requirement, unlike their traditional counterparts. Hence only the length of the word sonnet -14 lines- conjures to mind the traditional sonnet. The “word” component of the word sonnet comes by the fact that each line be comprised of one word only. Further formality or adherence to form is supplied by the lack of typographical pyrotechnics; the poems are left-justified just as a traditional poem would be. The effect of a word sonnet as practised by Mayne is to create a poetic that is almost epigrammatic...
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on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 at 4:21 PM.
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