Midsummer? I'm inclined to think, not so,
The skies are overcast with deepest gray
The crossing changes now from stop to go,
It's time for walkers to be on their way:
The rattling drills are digging up the street,
Putting back tramlines on a tarmac plain,
The tourists scutter by on sodden feet
The cityscape is swept with sheets of rain:
Big Issue sellers hunch themselves in doors,
Cupping their cigarettes in rain-drenched hands
While from a broken downpipe, water pours -
Scotland! The paragon of all the lands!
Skip round the puddles, come let's step it gaily!
Invite the world to join a plashy ceilidh!
A contest entry
- Shakespearean Sonnet Competition: "PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN" WORK ONLY. by Vera Rich.
490 points, ended June 15, 51 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 12 of 12
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Och you! A wonderful celebration of Auld Reekie, where even the bloody clocks sound smug!
Now, the iambic rhythm breaks down in odd places, but to my mind that is perfectly ok - I call that "softened iambs", and it's a good way to counteract the jackhammer thump of pentameter. It makes it like a burn trickling over stones.
You could have made it more Scottish, though - "While from a broken rhone the water pours".
I like the female rhymes in the couplet, and it made me think of "Marie's Wedding".
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As always ...
you've done a fabulous job with this. My problem is that I have no idea how to pronounce that final word.
Anyway, good luck in the contest.
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I should have preferred a stronger volta between octave and sestet.... But the wonderful rhyme in the final couplet would more than cover a multitude of poetic peccadillos.... and here there is only one.
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Beautiful sonnet!
This sounds like a romantic period sonnet written for modern times! The images of the streets of Edinburgh bring back fond memories of my visit there a few years ago! Fine poem! Good work!
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I remember summers that gave us Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks and Lazy Sunday by the Small Faces. Edinburgh Sonnet seems to sum up these current global warming days superbly - wet, bloody freezing and nothing classic happening on the music scene! Al Gore - I await your explanation with baited breath and barbed teeth.
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Hahah. This was fun to read. And makes me mourn my own midsummer. All this rain and not a drop of sun. *languishes* Good stuff.
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Well, luckily we're getting a few days late sun. I'll manage a bit of a languish masel' nae doot, when I'm oot and aboot the day.
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That's a great sonnet. I think it develops a peculiar, very unique charm in the way it evokes rather modern pictures (I mean that tramlines, tourists, etc.) with the rather (I hesitate to say) old-fashioned form, and the flow that is very inate to well-written sonnets. Now who says that formed poetry needs to be out-of-date?
I really enjoy the easiness with which this sonnet flows. I also love the fact that the couplet deviates a little in rhythm, as it puts some emphasis on it. The rhyme flows just the same -- nothing worse than forced rhyme, and it's very natural in this poem.
All in all a lovely, skilfully written and uplifting sonnet! Well done!
All the best and take care,
Anna
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Bonny words to say. Much appreciated.
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I started to see this as a bit grim as I read but in such a descriptive way and then you turn it around. "Skip round the puddles, come let's step it gaily! Invite the world to join a plashy ceilidh."
Nice write.
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July- holidays and traveling to places not seen before, visiting friends or just relaxing. You have shown us Edinburgh through your words and given us images to image it for ourselves.
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Thank you. That's a nice thing to say.
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