Sonnets, sort of

[rainsometimes]

Er. Um. I have a feeling this is going to come across as somewhat pretentious, but there it is: I’ve written four sonnets about Usopp, Zoro, Sanji and Nami, set before they meet Luffy. Or, well, four sonnetlike poems at least, as the sonnet is a pretty strict form and I’ve taken some liberties with rhyme and metre, as well as simplifying the rhyming scheme. Feedback much appreciated on anything – rhythm, characterisation, word choice and what-have-you.

Title: East Blue Sonnets
Rating: G
Pairing: None
Flavour: Kinda serious
Spoilers: None (edit: well, none past Nami's background in the Arlong Park storyline). Set before everything starts.

Disclaimer: Though unnamed here, they all belong to Eiichiro Oda as part of One Piece, and are used without permission for the purpose of entertainment.




He’s come here since forever, since before
His memory holds. He’s spun a thousand tales
About the waves below, and so much more:
The nameless reaches where his father sails.

The ships pass by at times, but don’t come close;
It’s up to him to keep the people here
From choking on pure peace and stolid prose,
With splendid boasts and pranks beyond compare.

The first step seems impossible to take.
Yet someday he will follow ocean streams,
Sail far and wide (he hopes), prepared to stake

His life on going where Adventure gleams…
It sounds so good. He prays he’ll never wake.
To give up the sea would mean to give up dreams.



*


It’s not the sea he needs, it’s not the waves,
the roar and sigh of them; the seagulls’ call,
nor is it gold and silver that he craves –
there is a man he needs to find. That’s all.

He does not need companions: he can walk
The road alone, be strong in deed and name.
He shrugs at people’s stares and fearful talk.
The promise burns inside him like a flame.

But it’s too easy to get stuck on land.
The world won’t match the course his heart has set,
It twists and turns – too soft, like shifting sand,

and men will try to catch him in their net.
But he can’t break; can’t lose what he has planned,
no matter what. He’s broken no law yet.


*


The ships he sees don’t pass; they come here first,
Marines and pirates both; to have a rest,
To sate their hunger and to quench their thirst,
He’s seen so many crews; he’s not impressed.

And if he gazes out at times and sees
Another, sunlit sea - where they all roam,
Ten thousand different fish who live in peace,
In that abode, their legendary home,

Delicious all; where beauteous mermaids swim,
Most exquisite, so full of charm and grace;
Where dolphins leap, and hunger can’t step in -

- he knows it’s childish fancies, knows his place
is where an obligation’s holding him,
a debt he can’t repay. And so he stays.


*


She does not see the waves. She sees the gold;
She hears the clink of coins within her mind.
The treasures that those pirate ships may hold,
Call out to her, ‘Come, see what you can find.’

She’s good at this. She’ll smile and infiltrate,
Sneak through and make the grab – then run like hell.
Then, off to count the spoils, re-calculate,
And ponder how to reach the Grand Line well.

It will take charts and planning, luck and guile,
But oh! the catching, if the fish will bite!
She might use allies, for a little while;

she’ll take the lead while they will nod and fight.
Until it’s large enough, her hard-won pile,
To buy her village and get back her life.

Comments

[scribe-protra.livejournal.com]

Eeee they're all so nice!

[serrende.livejournal.com]

Gee, thanks! ^_^

[73737.livejournal.com]

Oh I really liked these, especially Zoro and Nami's. :3

[serrende.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Glad to hear it.

[tonko-ni.livejournal.com]

Holy mother, it's for-real grown-up poetry, I just... wow. Have I told you before how poetry sort of mystefies me? I can't quite grasp it--the... I don't know, the shape, the something, whatever makes it work--I can't do it. Making things rhyme is kinda magic :D

I like Usopp's and Zoro's best, however I like the first line of Nami's best. <3

[serrende.livejournal.com]

Have I told you before how poetry sort of mystefies me? I can't quite grasp it--the... I don't know, the shape, the something, whatever makes it work--I can't do it. Making things rhyme is kinda magic :D

Hm, no, I didn't know that. But I actually think writing formal poetry like this that has to conform to a given pattern can be tough. Some writers just take to it like a fish takes to water, and I find that pretty damn admirable - how can they come up with all those rhymes so quickly, making it seem so natural? For me these things took a long time to write - but I had a few lines I wanted to use, and a general shape in my mind for all four of them that I was trying to push towards. So I just kept at it until something emerged.

But honestly I don't think poetry's any big deal, really. Mostly, it's really just a question of keeping a rhythm inside your head. And I guess paying close attention to how each word sounds, and how it goes along with the other words. But it's the rhythm that's the real thing, in my eyes. (When I try to write sonnets I usually repeat "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" in my head in order not to lose track of the rhythm.;))

This being said, attempting to write sonnets in English is much easier than in Swedish. English has a lot more monosyllabic words and hence a lot more rhymes an dmore ways of fiddling around with the lines. Also, I've read somewhere that the fundamental rhythm of the language is iambic - da-dam rather than dam-da - and it seems to fit.

I like Usopp's and Zoro's best, however I like the first line of Nami's best. <3

Glad you like them! Usopp's was made to set the template, kinda, and then the other three differing from that.

[tonko-ni.livejournal.com]

But honestly I don't think poetry's any big deal, really.

:D Show-off :D (I mean that in all fondness and real awe, I'm not kidding). I don't know why I can't do it myself, maybe I lack a kind of logic circuit for holding the rhymes and meter in my mind. So it remains kinda mysterious for me! ::makes spooky hand motions::

And, funnily enough, I remember and English teacher saying that English is actually a difficult language to do sonnet-type poetry because the original sonnet was Italian, which has loads of rhymable words. On the other hand, if English is iambic then I guess that offsets the problem somewhat.

[serrende.livejournal.com]

Whoops, I wasn't trying to be a show-off, but now I realise I kinda sounded that way. ;) It's more like sometimes I feel that poetry is maybe put on some kinda pedestal too often, making it into this high elevated thing - and sure, the very best poems certainly are that, but so are the best novels and songs and movies and comics. Whereas actually I think the compact form of lyrical poetry makes it the (formal) art form that may be easiest for people to produce themselves (possibly beaten by drawing, I guess). And poems don't have to be incredibly deep and nuanced to be enjoyable, in my opinion.

And, funnily enough, I remember and English teacher saying that English is actually a difficult language to do sonnet-type poetry because the original sonnet was Italian, which has loads of rhymable words.

Huh. That may well be true in that Italian would probably be even easier, rhyming-wise. But compared to Swedish, English is way easy!^_^ Also, I'm just speculating but the abundance of short words may make it easier for English sonnetists to cram more content into their lines than for Italian. (I've seen something like that when it comes to haikus.)

[alice-and-lain.livejournal.com]

Whoa, this is incredible. I think Zoro's hit me the hardest, particularly the ending and about how he's "broken no law yet." The yet is a great touch. But I also really, really like Usopp's with how his tales and dreams "sound so good" and how you slipped Yasopp in. Yasopp is a bit of a mystery and I really want to know more about him and how things came about.

Really nice poetry. I'm seriously impressed.

[serrende.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! These took a long time to write, with some lines coming very early and easily while others had to be digged out and patiently waited out. (I did a lot of the going-through-the-alphabet-in-search-of-rhyming-words thing ^_^.) But just because something takes long doesn't mean it turns out well, of course!

I think Zoro's hit me the hardest, particularly the ending and about how he's "broken no law yet." The yet is a great touch.
(feels flattered) I knew Zoro's was going to end like that very early on, so I wrote much of his poem backwards in getting to that point. (I kinda like how I slipped in his directionlessness. ;p) But his poem was easier for some reason than the others' were - it was the first one I finished.

I just felt I had to have a reference to Yasopp in Usopp's part, picturing Usopp sitting by the cliff and looking out to sea and dreaming. It would have felt wrong not to say something about his father there.

[dethorats]

These were all lovely and they capture that essence that each of them holds before they meet Luffy, what they still, to varying degrees carry inside of them even now.

I adored Zoro's but, oddly for me since it's about Sanji, I feel like the emotions in the last stanza really hit home in a way that we haven't really gotten for him since his leave-taking.

[serrende.livejournal.com]

I'm very glad you enjoyed them, thank you! Fan poetry seems impopular by many so it's very nice to see one's efforts appreciated. ^_^

I adored Zoro's but, oddly for me since it's about Sanji, I feel like the emotions in the last stanza really hit home in a way that we haven't really gotten for him since his leave-taking.

Oh. That makes me feel rather honoured.

Sanji's bit was the harder to write, possibly because I felt it needed to be about All Blue but we rarely see him talk or openly think about it in the manga after that. Then again, Sanji's often the odd man out for me in various thematical ways, even though I like him an awful lot. (Maybe that's even part of why I like his character...)

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Wow. Colour me very impressed.

Remember what I said about most English poetry? It doesn´t apply here: the rhythm is clearly there, but not boring and not always the same da-dam da-dam. And some of the phrases you found are really fitting and right on second glance. I can´t even say which one I liked best, they were all wonderful.

[serrende.livejournal.com]

*^_^* Thank you very much. Would like to restate my comment to tonko_ni above: these poems took a long time before original idea and the final completion.

I'm terribly flattered, but I've been inspired by many English-language poets... though it's hard to quote any one as a favourite. I do recommend more Frost and Yeats, however; maybe Edna St. Vincent-Millay for sonnets, as well - but all three of those have also written plenty of things I don't care much for at all, as is the case with most poets for me (man, I sound picky!). I'd like to rec this (http://www.anvari.org/fortune/Miscellaneous_Collections/393055_in-youth-it-was-a-way-i-had-to-do-my-best-to-please.html) snarky little gem by Dorothy Parker, though. ;p

Oh, and I remember this one (http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/williams/1047) from English class! Several of my classmates didn't think it qualified as a poem, because it sounds so everyday and trivial, like something that could be written on a note on the fridge: but I don't agree. It just sounds so lyrical to me. And it's very catchy.

Nothing beats a good anthology, I think. But it's hard to know beforehand if it's going to be good or not - I guess I'd recommend going to your local library and browse among English-language poetry anthologies there. (In Dublin, years ago, I found an old paperback called "British Poetry since 1945" (published in 1970, edited by Edward Lucie-Smith) some of which I think has influenced me quite a bit.)

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Picky is, I think, normal for poetry. ^^

I really like the one by Dorothy Parker :)
The other one I can´t open for mysterious reasons (probably my internet); maybe it works tomorrow.

I´ll definitely go check for poetry in the library as soon as I have the time, so probably not for another week or two. (Maybe then I can give you a few recs of my own!)

In the meantime, I found this (http://poetry.dreamwidth.org/) with a lot of different poems and updated every few days. Very useful :)

[serrende.livejournal.com]

Here's another link (http://davidbjohnson.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/i-have-eaten-the-plums-npm-day-15/) to the same poem. Maybe this works better? It's very short.

Cool link! Thank you.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

This works better, thanks. Plums!
(Funny poem. During the first two parts I wasn´t sure, but with the third part it definitely counts as a poem for me. But maybe that´s just because mmm, plums!)