Speed Sonnets

At about 11pm on Friday night, Phoebe came into my room with her school computer open. Her bedtime on Friday is 10pm, so I was surprised to see her. She said she had recently learned about a poetry competition that she wanted to enter, but the deadline was midnight and she hadn't written anything yet. I put aside what I'd been doing and invited her to sit with me.

She said the poem needed to be a sonnet, but she had no experience with sonnets. She and I did some quick Google searches to learn/refresh our memories about correct sonnet structure. She was getting anxious because she wasn't sure what she should write. I pulled out my own computer and said we could do the same exercise we'd done when she had to write a sijo poem. In other words, we could try speed writing sonnets together. She took me up on my offer and we jumped in. She submitted her finished poem with minutes to spare.

Want to read what we wrote? Here's Phoebe's:

The page, so blank, yet full of life and love.

Whole worlds lay at my fingertips, unknown.

The feathers as white as those of a dove,

With many characters to soon be shown. 

But there cannot be highs without the lows

No stories come, my mind has hit a wall.

All while my lack of motivation shows.

The chasm too wide, and I jump, but fall.

You’d not take water from a dried up well,

You will find nothing more than stale, old, air.

So neither should you force the mind to tell

Such a story that has no thought or care.

And at last pen meets paper, sparks burst through,

You’ll find a tale, created thus by you.

And here's mine:

A room of wonders stands before my face,

the shelves as tall as pirate ships, their sails

unfurled and poised to carry me through space

and time and love and war and tears through tales.

They beckon me, these walls of words with wings,
as I draw near my fingers start to hum.

Each spine a well-worn testament that sings

adventure to my soul, and whispers, “Come.”

But how to choose which voice will grab my brain,

and how to haul the stack I can’t turn down?

Ignore advice, the oft recalled refrain,

I pick the books by cover, full arms round.

The library holds magic for my mind,

a haven safe for people of my kind.