I've found myself recently setting quill to parchment over and over in the form of sonnets. As they are not particularly appropriate for performance, or much of anything else save private letters, and as I nevertheless wished to share them, I tucked them away here. As this work is quite personal, I would ask that the viewer not recite it, perform it, or share it through any medium, though I do invite them to send other seekers this way. I do not even guarantee that these poems will make sense to the casual reader, or to any save the one or ones for whom it was intended.
All of the poems here are my own. There are none written by other
artists, nor will there be any, though some among them are inspired in part
by the work of other poets.
While essentially all of these sonnets have been inspired by specific individuals
(leading to the description of these poems as portraits), I have sorted them
by their first lines rather than by the people to whom they were written.
This is in the interests of not causing the outside of this page to
look like a dictionary of which citizens of Elanthia have been on my mind
lately. I make no apologies for this.
If anyone would particularly care to know: a sonnet is a fourteen-line
poem in which each line is in iambic pentameter (or, in less complex terms,
soft HARD soft HARD soft HARD soft HARD soft HARD.) Sonnets are supposed
to be formed in one octave and one sestet, expresses two successive phase
of a single thought, with one of three rhyme schemes:
-Loenthran (or Petrarcan) sonnet: abbaabba cdcdcd
-Turamzzyrian (or Miltonic) sonnet: abbaabba cdecde
-Tilamairean (or Shakespearian) sonnet: ababcdcd efefgg
As you may note, I do not always fall strictly within the forms, particularly the division between octave and sestet. However, I am as of yet come a novice to this form, and pray that my art shall improve in time. (Recently, I keep producing verses that are torn between Loenthran and Tilamairean: abbaabba cdcdee. I'm not sure why. Time to be more careful.)
If you would wish me to write a sonnet for you or for one beloved of you (or otherwise linked to you with strong emotion), I do indeed write pieces for commission. Please contact me at this address for more information.
--Tanager Skydancing