guardian.co.uk / poster poems 4 artistofideas ["BOKE" username not allowed by guardian site] Comment No. 1059277 April 19 18:08 (Since the thread's turned meta on the WHY of it ... Never accuse me of poetry, but I "sure can" count syllables ;) [exceptionally dreary rhetorical verse in Shakespearean / English sonnet form]   I never wrote a "sonnet" 'till SOME GIRL BEGAN TO MOCK ME for my message length and caused the other forum-mates to hurl "long-winded" at what I thought was my strength.   Five hundred words of eloquence: Hot air. So surely no balloon would change their chant. And though from me a metaphor is rare, I used a FORM that most folks say they can't.   Yes, clearly there's no poetry in this. But still I claim the sonnet "rules" can make 'most anyone, perhaps, see what they miss when prattling on when nothing is at stake.   Today I've made a mockery of why you'd choose to write this way ... but still my die. :)   ----------- (P.S. After last week's mention of Vikram Seth's "The Golden Gate," I pulled the copy off the shelf for another look at those 400 14-line things I was sure weren't sonnets. Oh, I see: Pushkin sonnets.) (P.P.S. In some kind of now defunct grand plan to use software to "automatically" constrain the bullshit in political debate, I spent a month writing a program that can verify "correct" English sonnet form ... Today, I see it is complaining about the line with "prattling" being a syllable too long... lol) [NOTE: VERSCHIP code has now been updated to allow prattling as either 2 or 3 syllables, and also handle elision code of "prat'ling".] (P.P.P.S. :) While tuning the form verifier, a class of high school students tried it ... and I noticed some narrative sonnets apparently written by a student's relative about personal experience in the Vietnam conflict ... [cutting short a long discourse on the possible value of the "old" formal constraints for structuring the "prattling" of non-poets, like me. :)]