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Childream Posted 12 years ago

Help with my iambic pentameter sonnet!

I have written an iambic pentameter sonnet but actually I am confused about iambic pentameter!

Here is my sonnet:
A summer night we come across again,

Is In the countryside with easy life.

And time has passed so fast but now is still.

And I remember shining eyes of you.

Sometime you had a dream of literature,

Of love, of traveling all around the world.

But when we drink here talking trivial things,

The glasses click a sound of broken dreams.

Again I wander lonely in the street,

Someone is kicking can ahead of me:

A jingle song from whose tough top,

A heavy sigh from whose empty heart.

The street is full of hot and sticky air,

I feel so cold that in a summer night.

Could someone help me check? And if some lines are not iambic pentameter, how do I improve it?
Thank you!
  

Top answer

childream how do I improve it? With some very minor glitches you have succeeded in maintaining the iambic pentameter—at the sacrifice of coherence or natural word flow. The natural speech of English is essentially iambic, and you need to be sure that you have built sentences that are reasonably natural and that tell your story like a conversation, with all the grammar and sentence structure intact, not "is kicking can"!

— Mister Micawber

  • childream how do I improve it?
  • With some very minor glitches you have succeeded in maintaining the iambic pentameter—at the sacrifice of coherence or natural word flow.
  • The natural speech of English is essentially iambic, and you need to be sure that you have built sentences that are reasonably natural and that tell your story like a conversation, with all the grammar and sentence structure intact, not "is kicking can"!
  • What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
  • Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.
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5 Answers
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childream how do I improve it?
With some very minor glitches you have succeeded in maintaining the iambic pentameter—at the sacrifice of coherence or natural word flow. The natural speech of English is essentially iambic, and you need to be sure that you have built sentences that are reasonably natural and that tell your story like a conversation, with all th
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Thank you for your reply! But apart from "is kicking can", what are the minor glitches and the sacrifice of coherence or natural word flow in this peom? Can you explain them in details? Since I am not a native speaker of English and not a student studying english literature, I feel so hard to write this poem. If you could give me more suggestions about improvement, I should be appreciate it. For e
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childreamthe sacrifice of coherence or natural word flow in this peom?
Virtually all of it. None of it is natural sentence flow. Just look at it as a paragraph:

A summer night we come across again, is in the countryside with easy life. And time has passed so fast but now is still. And I remember shining eyes of you. Sometime you had a dream of
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Mister MicawberJust look at it as a paragraph:
But if look at the sonnet you gave above as a paragraph:
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning. It's also not consistent... I think you cannot simply change the format of a poem into a paragraph, and vice versa.
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Ahead of me, someone kicks a can, then.
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