On Turns

It occurred to me today, as I was teaching my class about sonnets, that a key factor in a successful sonnet is the use of the turn. The turn is a part of a sonnet I have not yet written about here in any depth, but it is intimately bound up in the content, form, and meaning of a sonnet. The turn(s) is (are) where the sonnet differentiates itself from other forms, because the turn is where the movement happens.

A sonnet is not a good sonnet unless it takes advantage of the opportunity that every sonnet rhyme scheme provides for a turn: a change from setting up or describing a situation to developing that situation. I use "developing" intentionally, as there are many ways to develop a situation: a reversal, a continuation, an explanation, a narrowing of focus, a broadening of focus, etc. What is crucial here is that something changes: that the sonnet is not static, but progressive.

The standard place for a turn is where the rhyme scheme changes. This can be a big bold change like in a traditional Petrarchan or Italian sonnet (ABBAABBA/CDECDE or CDCDCD with the turn at the end of the AB section). It can be a last-minute whiplash like in a traditional Shakespearean or English sonnet (ABABCDCDEFEF/GG with a turn before the couplet). There can be a series of smaller turns, as in the same form (ABAB/CDCD/EFEF/GG with turns after each change in rhyme). And I find that having this alignment between rhyme and turn is actually a good sign of a well-crafted sonnet: there is no ironclad rule that says a sonnet cannot have its turn where there isn't a change in rhyme, but doing so allows the rhyme scheme to pull double duty. This can apply to other elements as well: metrical substitutions or changes, for instance, can also be a turn's best friend.

What I wanted to focus on here is that the turn often makes less traditional rhyme schemes more interesting. Take, for example, a Spenserian sonnet (ABABBCBCCDCDEE). This has quatrains like a Shakespearean sonnet, but the rhyme scheme links across them by the reuse of the same rhyme, creating couplets. This means that a Spenserian sonnet flows together until the climactic EE rhyme at the end, offering the potential for an extremely potent couplet turn, even more powerful than in a Shakespearean sonnet. A similar effect appears in Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey's early sonnet "The soote season," which has the unusual rhyme scheme ABABABABABABCC. The sense of motion is different than in the Spenserian rhyme scheme, but the core element of heavily emphasizing the couplet turn remains, if anything made stronger by the use of only one rhyme pair before the turn and by refusing all couplets before the end as well.

A different but equally potent effect can come in poems with multiple turns, as in the 4/4/4/2 Shakespearean example but also in other forms as well. Sir Thomas Wyatt's "Whoso list to hunt," another early sonnet in English, finds a hybrid form derived from Petrarch with an ABBAABBACDCDEE rhyme scheme. This provides for two turns: as in Petrarch, between AB and CD rhyme schemes, but also between the CD and the final EE couplet. Petrarch's own poem on which this is based (Sonnet 190) does a softer version of this by having a mini-turn in the middle of the sestet between the CDE and CDE rhyme pairs. This is an advantage of the CDECDE ending to a Petrarchan sonnet (as opposed to CDCDCD) in that the two repetitions of the three-line CDE unit is more congenial to this kind of mini-turn than the three repetitions of a two-line CD unit. It's not that a turn can't be two lines (see: every couplet turn ever) but rather that the CD units would require an additional turn (between each pair), which is harder to achieve.

There is no reason, of course, why this turning element in the sonnet should be limited to traditional rhyme schemes (though as I hope the above shows, "traditional" covers a wide range already). Shelly's "Ozymandias" is ABABACDCEDEFEF, a decidedly untraditional scheme, and main two turns come exactly where you'd expect: at the hiccup in the rhyme, the E ("And on the pedestal these words appear") and at the final turn to the F rhyme ("Nothing beside remains. Round the decay"). Changes in rhyme can overlap with turns wherever they are found. Want to write a sonnet with seven different rhymes and put a turn every time you switch? More power to you (it's going to be hard though). Want to put your couplet at the start and then run four quatrains of turns after it? Enjoy! The central idea though, remains: a good sonnet has interesting turn(s), where the ideas shift and the poem moves, and those turn(s) should line up with the changing rhyme. This is a classic example of how craft meets meaning, and of how the tools of the sonnet can contribute to the forms' poetic effects.

Ecclesiastes

Every piece of news is bad;

I cringe before I turn the page

To ward against the dark and sad,

And bank the omnipresent rage.

I try to turn my face away,

Read from the corner of my eye;

I fear the horrors of the day.

It is a struggle not to cry.

Every email feels a threat

I hate to turn my laptop on

For dread of being overset

Because my confidence is gone

That told me once the world won't burn.

But now it will. It is our turn.

Falling

The sky above is brooding with despair
Promising nothing quite so much as rain.
An autumn chill breaks through the summer air;
A tumbleweed of leaves drifts down the lane
Until it smacks against a car, and breaks,
Shedding itself into the gutter. Light
Diffuses out of nowhere, and so makes
No shadows. It is neither day nor night.
A strange uncertain silence has descended:
No squirrels, no birds, no people break the peace.
Only the acorns on the roof have rended
The empty quiet: and they too soon cease.
Time is suspended. Clocks don't tick. Yet I
Must wander on beneath the saddened sky.

Urban Pastoral

The curtains haven't opened up all day
The little dog thrusts out a curious nose
Hoping someone new will come and play.
She settles down. The curtains slowly close.
A cat with matted hair struts up the walk,
Pauses and licks herself, then ambles by.
The nose emerges in a sudden shock
Of righteous indignation, and an eye
Glares outward with a growl. But the cat
Ignores it, wanders off, and disappears.
The nose retracts, and leaves the curtain flat
Except a corner, where two little ears
Are barely visible, to listen for
The cat, should she again threaten the door.

Imagined Horrors

The night is long and full of ghosts
Not of the dead--we vanish when we die--
But of ideas. The unimagined hosts
Flitter inanely in the daytime sky
But hover closer when the night draws in.
They try to burrow deep into our souls
Prompting our dreams of saintliness or sin
Pursuing always their own selfish goals:
To be remembered, thought, and given wing
Within a living mind. I cannot sleep
Or they will occupy my everything
And I, who never contemplate the deep
Will find myself, despite my inclination
Engaged in sudden ratiocination.

DBev

When I was twenty-three, I took his class

And when I wrote, he'd read, and he'd respond.

A twenty-three-year-old can be an ass

But he was kind, and patient, and beyond.

When I was twenty-six, we taught together

And I learned just a little of his ways;

If I can teach, then he was my bellwether

Leading with subtle hints and cautious praise.

When I was thirty-one, we met again

(He gave a talk I managed to attend);

At thirty-two, he sent a card that then

Implied I'd graduated to a friend.

The last I heard of him was that December

And all that I can do now is remember.

Devotional

Eternal God, help me to see the wrong
In what I think is right. Help me to be
The version of myself that You can see
That brings my human weaknesses along
(Recalling good does not quite equal strong)
But turns them toward the best consistently
Striving to become a better me
In whom Your image may, at last, belong.
Help me to see my flaws and never flinch
While seeing in my enemy the good
That he intends, and how he does Your will.
Let me improve my own self inch by inch
To be the person that You know I should
And in pursuit of justice never still.

Meditation

Sometimes I wonder why I worship God
And then I see the beauty in the world--
The orcas cresting in a joyful pod,
A newborn ferns first tendrils now unfurled,
A stationary stormcloud on a hill--
And I remember, for a little while.
But in the face of such enormous ill
As stalks the land, it's difficult to smile
Even at the beauty. Orcas die;
The old-growth forests where the ferns live fade;
And stormclouds dash their beauty from the sky.
Beauty lives, it seems, to be unmade.
But then the cycle of the Lord still turns:
New calves are born, and rain brings forth new ferns.

Guilt

The sea of open pain that lies between
"This isn't who we are, this isn't us"
And "this isn't who we wish that we had been"
Swallows whole expeditions without fuss.
"We don't do this." Well, actually, we did
We know (we knew, we always know) it's wrong
But that alone cannot and should not rid
Our souls of having done it. We can long
To live upon that blessed, far off shore
But oceans are not crossed by mere desire.
We must set sail: be better, and do more,
And take the fault and blame, however dire.
We may fall seasick as we turn and toss
But we must stomach it, or else not cross.

I Lift My Lamp

They didn't break the law. That shouldn't matter
Since they're still human, and we ought to care
About them all. But kindness tends to shatter
When pressed too hard, as we forget what's fair
And fall back on what's easy. Either way
They had the right to come, the right to flee,
The right to seek a future from today
(The same right we declared so holily
Two hundred years ago). They did no wrong.
We did. We do. And we continue to.
If we're a country where they don't belong
We need to change, to pledge ourselves anew
To our ideals, which we have failed before.
That's no excuse: we must and can do more.