It's been a while since I analyzed a sonnet here; and longer since it was my own poetry I exposed to my glare. So I thought it might be nice to pull a random sonnet out of my sonnet sequence and give it the treatment. So here we go:
The night I met him, I was going to tell
You everything, and ask you on a date.
But something in me prompted me to wait
Although I strained against it. I could smell
That something wasn't right, and so to hell
With all of that. I wish that I could hate
One of you two, or destiny, or fate
For doing this to me, but no. O well,
Life is what it will be. I'll wonder though
While smiling and making conversation
What might have been, if on some other night
Not stopped by that incisive realization
I'd asked you, and you'd told me yes or no
But I guess it's better this way - right?
What Went Wrong:
Cards on the table: I kinda like this sonnet. But it's definitely not perfect. There are a couple lines that fall afoul of what I'd like to be a convention but isn't actually: they're all monosyllables, or all but one, which I really prefer not to see in iambic pentameter (this includes the first line, but particularly "With all of that. I wish that I could hate"). There are also a couple of lines with really awkward moves towards the rhyme; I'm thinking particularly of "For doing this to me, but no. Oh well," which seems to have realized midway through the line that there needed to be a rhyme at the end of it and just finished up the sentence ASAP and gone running on to the rhyme. Indeed, the entire insertion of "Oh well/Life is what it will be" feels strained, like a bridge that can't quite justify why the two parts it connects are connected. I could also point out the clear disconnect between the end, with its suggestion of the need for a yes/no answer, and the rest of the poem, with its implication that a no answer has in fact been received in some sense, even if not explicitly by words.
Not Too Shabby:
The rhyme scheme here, despite the reach described above, works well; the octave/sestet division is strong (and partly justifies the "oh well," as part of the turn) and the ebb and flow within the octave is also strong, with the rhymed pairs date/wait, smell/hell, and hate/fate encapsulating somewhat the modulations that section undergoes. I like matching the feminine lines ending in "conversation" and "realization," and along with that I like the interwoven (rather than simply cookie-cutter) rhymes of the sestet. My basic impression of this poem as a whole is that it is one of the (few) sonnets I have written in an Petrarchan mode that really takes advantage of the octave/sestet division and the ability to move on from a problem established in the octave and expand and clarify it in the sestet. The enjambment between the two sections works well for that. Combining that effect with the sudden turn at the end of the poem, with the monosyllabic question "right?", feels, well, right, and does a good job of expressing the uncertainty and indecisiveness in which the poem wallows. As a final thought on form, I also like the endstopping of the second line, as it clearly expresses the issue being explored, and allows the remainder of the poem to work itself out in two paired and enjambed sestets, yet another expansion of the possibilities of the basic octave/sestet design.
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