This Love Letter is an extended metaphor: it credits the addressee with having built the narrator into a giant statue, then helped them come to life. A Titan. The first quatrain describes the “mound” and “foundations” on which a statue is to be built. The second quatrain details the process of creating a statue capable… Continue reading Love Letters 6: Moving Monument
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Love Letters 5: Disappearance
Like all activities in life, some sonnets are hard graft, some flow. Those two experiences are related. Sometimes early graft provides later ease; sometimes early ease engenders later graft. I spent a long time thinking about this sonnet. The process of writing it was fluid and fast. Rhyme appears in several forms. In addition to… Continue reading Love Letters 5: Disappearance
Love Letters 4: Justice
An adage from my advertising days was, if you want people to catch one ball… throw them one ball. Throw them ten and they’ll catch the wrong one. Or none. This axiom is as important in creative writing. A poem with several points is a roll of barbed wire; a poem with one point is… Continue reading Love Letters 4: Justice
Love Letters 3: Beacon
Having avoided hyperbole in last week’s sonnet, I’ve rediscovered my affection for this linguistic technique. This change reminds me how my mood affects my writing; one day I might like a form of expression, another day I might detest it. It’s a poet’s prerogative! This Love Letter is dedicated to someone I admire; someone who… Continue reading Love Letters 3: Beacon
Love Letters 2: Alchemist
I’ll keep this short because I’m on holiday with family; this collection is proving the hardest to write. I thought practising writing sonnets would have made the process easier. But it’s not the process that’s hard with my Love Letters collection, it’s the sentiment. Each sonnet in this collection is a letter to someone I… Continue reading Love Letters 2: Alchemist
Love Letters 1: We River
This is the first of my fourth and final series of fourteen sonnets: love letters. Each of these sonnets is a letter to someone, or something, I love, or have loved. Deeply. I will not reveal who, or what, each letter is dedicated to. ‘We River’ is an extended metaphor. It begins with theft from… Continue reading Love Letters 1: We River
Ages & Sins 14: Sloth
In my final ‘seven deadly sins’ sonnet (also the final sonnet in my ‘Ages & Sins’ collection), I make the case for sloth. As with all my musings in this miniseries, I take the position that a so-called sin is love for something that others deem unacceptable. And who would determine sloth a sin? The… Continue reading Ages & Sins 14: Sloth
Ages & Sins 13: Anger
In making the case for anger, I needed to understand how it benefits us. Chatting to my wife, she suggested anger protects us from forces that conspire to undermine us. I agree. I get angry when things threaten the essence of my being: challenges that begin to overwhelm me, hurdles I can’t leap, people who… Continue reading Ages & Sins 13: Anger
Ages & Sins 12: Gluttony
Gluttony. Excessive eating and drinking. This fifth sonnet of my seven deadly sins collection, marks 5/7 of the way through my project to write a sonnet every week for a year. This sonnet is a celebration of gluttony. I have used synaesthesia (the rhetorical technique of describing one sense in terms of another) to construct a celebration… Continue reading Ages & Sins 12: Gluttony
Ages & Sins 11: Envy
Exploring love through the lens of the seven deadly sins has compelled me to justify them. Each sin is, after all, overwhelming love for something. The sins are meant to be avoided because they are manifestations of people loving things more than they love god. I’m happy to argue for them; I actively promote loving… Continue reading Ages & Sins 11: Envy