Sara without an H > this collection: Fragments Of Hell > Hypocrisy > Friendship > Possessiveness > Reputation > Status > Cowardice > Gangsta > Narcissists > Wrong > Judgement >> next collection: Peanu(t)s
Fragments Of Hell Sonnets
This collection of ten sonnets was written in just over a month between 17 October and 21 November 2014. When I wrote the first one I had no plans of writing a set, it just kinda happened that way. I had been trying out sonnet form during the previous months and decided to go with it, simply because rhyming poetry was so damn unfashionable on the Spoken Word circuit.
These sonnets are all my own original work — where I have recycled phrases from the creative work of other artists I’ve noted this below the sonnet in the Big Ups. Many thanks to my good friend R for the “each piece is a fragment of hell” description!
The sonnets were originally posted on my Facebook page in the order they were written .
Had I a pound for each time you say "gay"
To mean inferior or Double Dutch...
If I should never see your face again,
If one of us is taken from this earth...
Possession is still nine-tenths of the law;
Each patriarchal capitalist's quest...
You cite your reputation as "nice guy",
Can't understand why this is not enough...
Though lowly, skint and anarchist am I,
Got told I am "high status" by a mate...
When coasting on your rank complacency,
You're suddenly required to take a stand...
I hear you chatting pimped-up gangsta crap,
You think it's all about the golden tat...
The narcissist is in The Factory,
The feminist decides to wrest control...
You take great pride in "wrongness", but wherefore?
Dissociate yourself from all your fears...
"Judge not, lest ye be judged", but it's too late,
You judged me harshly, now I'm judging you...
Below is an explanation of the verse form and structure I used but you totally don’t need to know anything about that — I thought some people might be interested, is all.
Big Up Shakey 🎭
I have followed the Shakespearean sonnet form throughout. Shakey’s sonnet form was a hybrid of different forms that had developed from the 14th century onwards but he brought a complete change of content to them.
Sonnets before Shakey were always about “worshipful love for an almost goddess-like yet unobtainable female love-object” whereas he used sonnets to explore “lust, homoeroticism, misogyny, infidelity, and acrimony.”
Structural elements:
- There are fourteen lines and Iambic pentameter (ten syllables per line) is uniform throughout, in a couple of places this means dropping or over-stressing a syllable.
- The rhyme scheme is abab/cdcd/efef/gg; the only exception is “Narcissists” where I have repeated “Valerie”, making the rhyme scheme abab/cdcd/eaea/ff.
- The structure for each sonnet is the first quatrain (four lines) opens the subject, the second quatrain expands on the subject, the third quatrain looks at the subject from a different angle and the final couplet summarises the piece (in the final sonnet “Judgement” the structure doesn’t quite conform to this as the sonnet itself is a summary of all the previous ones). Line 9 heralds a change of mood so I’ve made this the start of the second stanza in all cases.
The sonnets don’t have an overarching linear narrative and can therefore be read in any order. As a set they could be taken to function in a similar way to the structure of each individual sonnet; the first three sonnets open the subject, the second three expand on the subject, the third three change the mood and the final one summarises.
Sara without an H > this collection: Fragments Of Hell > Hypocrisy > Friendship > Possessiveness > Reputation > Status > Cowardice > Gangsta > Narcissists > Wrong > Judgement >> next collection: Peanu(t)s
Sara Nicola Ruth 