Apologies to Shakespeare

To tell of love I first must sit and think
As I compose my Sonnetina Cinque.
Were Shakespeare here, he’d think my rhyme too brief,
With but ten lines to read upon the leaf;
To add four more were not a waste of ink.
But this is not Elizabethan verse,
So proudly I shall write my poem terse
And hope in time to help, by my employ,
Some others this fine genre to enjoy
And to some listening ear my work rehearse.

Copyright © 2018 Abigail Gronway – All Rights Reserved

For the next five weeks we will study sonnetinas, but my apologies to Shakespeare. These have only ten lines, and sometimes they don’t even rhyme.

Scansion:
Sonnetina Cinque
Two quintets, usually in iambic tetrameter or pentameter, but can be any form.
May be rhymed or unrhymed. If rhymed, only 2 rhyming sounds per stanza.
The first quintet presents a question or statement; the second answers the question or counters the statement.

For this one…
Rhythm and meter: iambic pentameter
Rhyme scheme: aabba ccddc