Here’s the context of the sonnet below. It is written by a sixteen year old fictional character who is nerdy, smart, and a bit on the Asperger’s spectrum. He’s also not a very experienced poet. But what I try to show is that he improves a little as he goes, falling back to teenhood toward the end of the poem. Why doesn’t he just keep improving? Because when he gets close to the true nature of love in lines 7-11, he realizes if he keeps going with this, he will be changed forever. He’s giving up partial control of his life to someone else. And it scares him so he backs off from that and just tries to show off how he can write a sonnet and be cool and funny.
Ultimately, I may or may not include the poem in the novel. If I do, I’d be inclined to add the inner dialogue of the Main Character as he’s creating the poem. I can see it getting too tedious for the reader. By the way, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a lengthy and detailed design rationale for “The Raven.” Notwithstanding that fact, there are many other folks who have a different interpretation. That’s fine. But it does remind me that if I do write a design rationale, it’s not as though everyone will say, “Oh, well that’s that then. The author has gone and told us what he meant and why he did what he did. What more to be said?”
And, of course, people do go on and there is more to be said because we know intuitively that none of us knows our complete design rationale. Others see patterns in our behavior that offer quite different hypotheses about why we do what we do. It doesn’t mean that they are right and we are wrong, but it does offer an opportunity to learn—about them as well as ourselves.
Promise me Prom
I really love the way you always smell
Like soap and flowers, pie, fresh bread.
Your sweat itself smells swell and sweet.
Which proves I think you’re competently bred.
Your hand is warm—I want to gently hold
In mine and you will feel my love is true.
We each will be both molded and be mold.
Your grip is gentle breeze upon the blue.
Your grip is strong and long and steady steel.
Your eyes are portals to the worlds-to-be
I want to know it: what you know and feel.
I want to be yours for eternity.
Let’s you and I become both ROM and COM
I’d love to have you date me for the PROM!
————-
Sonnet on Sadie
Sonnet on Shadows
Sonnet about Sadie
Sonnet about the Extreme Court
Sonnet about V. Putrid
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