Sketchbook_7-1_JanFeb_2012_Karin_Anderson:_Ekphrastic_Echo_Sonnet:_Starry_Starry

Sketchbook

a journal for eastern and western forms

An Echo Sonnet: Starry Starry Night

Karin Anderson, AU

Vincent (Starry Starry Night)

sung and composed by Don McLean

Starry Starry Night

Don composed a Tribute from Vincent’s art,
He grasped his guitar and sensed Vincent’s plight.
Staring at the print called the “Starry Night”~
The Artist’s essence echoed in Don’s heart.

Vincent named insane had fallen apart,
In a mad house, the right light was not there.
Don sensed love’s ache and longing for fresh air~
The Artist’s essence echoed in Don’s heart.

Today Vincent’s pain could have a new start.
Don McLean’s song echoes mountain-high pride,
And Vincent’s legend has now spread world wide~
The Artist’s essence echoed in Don’s heart.

Don composed a Tribute from Vincent’s art ~
The Artist’s essence echoed in Don’s heart.

The Echo Sonnet is a relatively new form devised by the well respected English Poet, Jeff Green. It takes its shape from three envelope quatrains and a couplet, the last line of each stanza is a refrain that links the quatrains and gives us a rhyme scheme of;

A, b, b, A1,…a, c, c, A1,…a, d, d, A1,…A, A1

The Echo Sonnet is based on French repeating forms, but unlike those forms which are normally syllabic, the preferred rhyme scheme is Iambic pentameter, or similar, and being a sonnet it should be presented as a 14 line poem. Here is a lovely example of that form.

I am assured that the creator insisted on pentameter meter. The choice of capitalization at the beginning of each line is purely your decision, but the creators of the sonnet insist on a 14 line form presentation, otherwise it will be merely a 4 stanza variety of forms.

~The Poets Garret: Tir Na nOg Poetry Community

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