Sonnet #3: Lives lived in vain

[taratica]

Hello Dukealien,

Wow! I really enjoyed reading your critique. Now, to find some time to work on this poem some more. Stay tuned for the next edition...

Hi there!

This is my first upload of a poem. I would like some strong criticism, please. It is supposed to be a sonnet. The title is a work in progress. It is about indiscriminate terrorism and extremism.

Sonnet #3: Lives lived in vain

1. What kind of monster has such a blatant,
   
   
2. Indiscriminate disregard for life?
   
   
3. Why is this world so plagued by violent
   
   
4. And viscous ideologies of strife?   vicious
   
   
   
   
5. How can these vile villains eliminate    there was only one in the last stanza
   
   
6. Scores of innocents, young and old alike,
   
   
7. In the name of dogma, justice and fate?
   
   
8. How can they justify each fatal strike?
   
   
   
   
9. We have to believe that these beasts are few
   
   
10. And that lives spent in fear are lived in vain.   do we really believe that?
    
    
11. We cannot succumb to a bleak world view
    
    
12. Where our hearts are ruled by hatred and pain.
    
    
    
    
13. Our hearts ache for those afflicted by grief
    
    
14. And in fellowship we find some relief.   new thought here?
    
    

In mild critique, you have, I believe, about two of five features here which characterize a sonnet (Shakespearean form, to be exact).  Your syllable count is spot-on, and your rhyme scheme is almost exactly correct (LL1 and 3, "blatant" and "violent" don't quite rhyme).

The feature I most miss when reading this is meter.  Conventionally, English sonnets are written in iambic pentameter, ten syllables to a line - which you have - alternating between unstressed and stressed.  If you read your LL 3 and 4 aloud - and give "violent" three syllables - this is iambic pentameter.  It may sound a little singsong, but minor variations are possible for emphasis.  Now read your L1.  Where LL3-4 are ./././././ where "/" is a stressed syllable, L1 read normally is ././..../.  ("what KIND of MONster has Such a BLAtant") - if forced into iambic, it would sound like "what KIND of MONster HAS such A blaTANT."  (Pardon me for belaboring this - I don't mean to be harsh, and I haven't read anyone else's critique yet.)  The point is, while variations ("substitutions") are welcome in moderation, meter is expected in this kind of poem.  It takes practice:  it's like, you know how to hop twenty times on one foot, now you have to learn to jump rope.*  You can do it - getting the ten syllables consistently isn't easy and you've done that, and nobody - no matter how lacking in pigment - is really rhythm-deaf.

A sonnet often has a romantic theme (mine frequently don't, so this is a VERY mild criticism).  The mention of fellowship and relief goes some way in this direction.

A sonnet is also characterized by a "turn" or volta at L13 or L9.  You have something of that nature transitioning from despair/description to qualified hope.  In the Shakespearean form (yours here) it tends to be at L13, the closing couplet.

You will find that many on this forum disapprove of using a capital letter at the beginning of each line, for various reasons (confuses the reading, is archaic, etc.).  I do not:  to me, traditional typography makes us, writing sonnets today, part of the tradition.  OTOH, sometimes I don't.

You have a number of identifiable cliches, starting with your title ("lived in vain").  Read through critically and you'll find more ("young and old alike," "bleak world view").  Expand your working vocabulary a bit and you'll find it's not that hard to substitue a few words for a cliche and arrive at something fresh and arresting ("youths and older innocents," "ever-jaundiced view").

Finally, the ideas expressed are a little confused and could be clarified.  For example, the first two lines speak of *one* monster while the rest speaks of such monsters as a class; making it apparent that you're generalizing later from the one example, or just starting with plural, could smooth this out.  L10 ("And that lives spent in fear are lived in vain"), which also contains your title, is jarring:  are you saying that we *must* believe monsters are few because otherwise our lives are lived in vain - even though they aren't really few, we're just pretending otherwise to cheer us up and live productive lives?  My sense is that you're more optimistic than that; it would be rather cynical read that way.

And last, beware word-processor/self-correction errors.  In L4 you mean "vicious," not "viscous" (heavily oily).

Overall:  You have many hours of enjoyable editing to look forward to here, especially a marvelous opportunity to match words to meter (and refine ideas in the process).  This is at least your third sonnet, so you have the quality of persistence.  Use it, and others will develop!

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*free verse would be hopscotch