Hooray!

I am the sonnet, never quickly thrilled; Not prone to overstated gushing praise Nor yet to seething rants and anger, filled With overstretched opinions to rephrase; But on the other hand, not fond of fools, And thus, not fond of people, on the whole; And holding to the sound and useful rules, Not those that seek unjustified control. I'm balanced, measured, sensible (at least, I think I am, and usually I'm right); And when more ostentatious types have ceased, I'm still around, and doing, still, alright. In short, I'm calm and rational and stable - Or, well, I am, as much as I am able. What Poetry Form Are You?

I actually love sonnets and long for the day when my poetic husband writes one for me. Although he's written two songs for me already, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

I am actually quite the dunderhead at poetry -- I've never really understood how anything more complicated than a Hallmark card comes together. My husband is a natural and thrives on rhythm, rhyme and structure. He wrote an amazing sestina in college about his aunt, who died from breast cancer at the all-too-young age of 45.

If you never had a hard-nosed poetry professor in college who made you write sestinas, it's a lyrical fixed form of poetry made up of six six-lined stanzas that usually don't rhyme, but the last words of each of the six lines are reused in different orders as the last words of each of the six lines in the following stanzas. And then it all finishes with a three-line stanza using the same six words as first-and/or-middle and end words. It's dizzyingly complicated for somebody like me.

If he gives me permission, I'll post his sestina here. It's really beautiful.

A vast number of St. Bloggers have linked to the poetry quiz, but I myself jumped over there from Scattershot Direct.

--Sparki