Challenge #13: Write a Sonnet

Sonnets are hard. They require working within a very limited structure and trying to fit your big ideas into a tiny space. And don't get me started on iambic pentameter.

Shakespeare was a genius, I think we can all agree on that. He wrote a whole tonne of these sonnets (154 in fact) and it has taken me all year to write one. And mine doesn't even follow iambic pentameter.

Other than iambic pentameter, which I ignored, a Shakespearean sonnet is three quatrains (four line stanzas) followed by a rhyming couplet. The quatrains follow abab cdcd efef rhyming structure. Oh, and then you're meant to develop an idea and turn it on its head in the final couplet.

Got it yet? It's a bit to get your head around. But then, anything worth knowing takes a bit of noggin scratching.

For my sonnet I decided to write on the idea of Motherhood. I would think that every woman thinks about this at some point and wonders if they want to be a mother and if they should be a mother. And if they don't think about this, lucky them.

I wanted to explore the idea/feeling that we're constantly pressured into thinking that we have to be mothers one day. That's where our lives are headed and if you don't want that then there is something innately wrong with you. Unwomanly. 

Not sure if I've captured all those feelings but as previously mentioned, these sonnets are limiting.

Sonnet #1

Beloved figure of unwavering love,
Raising, caring, nurturing us from birth.
Watching over us as if from above,
An endless night sky cannot match her worth.

Precious gift of life, we are meant to need
A uterus left empty is a sign
of a half life, just a selfish greed.
We’re all expected to just tow the line.

And so, I ask, is this the life for me?
Change my identity for another
then lose myself in an endless melee
just to become nothing but a mother.

Better to be more. Friend. Lover. Teacher.
Be a mother and a complex creature.