On Meter-Swapping, And Why It Messes With My Head

A sonnet every day has been my vow,

As I did undertake on New Year's Eve.

I've never missed a day - please don't ask how -

And once 'twas underway I did believe

I'd no more frets 'bout getting each one done.

But then I got an idea I have held

In check -- until I succumbed to the fun

It offered: a mock-epic that would weld

Space opera with farce. Yet woe is me:

Ottava rima is the classic way

Those are constructed, it is plain to see.

It's not unlike a sonnet, some might say:

Ten syllables a line, iambic, yet

The rhyme's scheme's off and so's the length, you bet!

BONUS SONNET: A Sonnet Duet And Interview With Aurelio Montemayor

Sonneteer's note: I had so much fun interviewing Jeremy C. Shipp in sonnet-form that I decided to do it some more. My victim/partner today is education activist, Texan and Twitter poet Aurelio Montemayor. He plays faster and more looser with the language and the metrical constraints of sonnets than I do, but he's an old hand at this here poetry thing, while I'm a five-month n00b. Aurelio is also quite prolific and deliciously opinionated. His blog is at http://parentleadershipined.blogspot.com/; his poetry on his Twitwall on Twitter, where you find him under the alias @aureliom

An education activist does what?
Excellent public schools for all I persue
Do you think education's in a rut?
Public will must give public schools their due
When you're not rabble rousing, what do you?
Books, films, crosswords, twitter, coffee and wine
And what to pick you up, when you are blue?
Meditation, silent sitting, a Buddhist-lite line
Aurelio, why sonnets, do you think?
Verse forms I avoided when young
How have we done so far; are we in sync?
We’re good doubles, trippingly on the tongue
What does the future hold for you, my dear?
Die ed advocating, sans loss of humor & poetical ear.

A Sonnet in Which I Reveal that Iambic Pentameter's a Bitch

On days like these, I curse my foolish thought
To generate, before each day is through
A sonnet that has all the things it ought:
The syllables, the rhyme scheme and then, too
The meter that, for Shakespeare, seems a breeze.
It drives me mad, for my poor feeble brain
Thinks in ottava rima, if you please!
I think I can give Byron all the blame.
I read his great Don Juan much too young,
Spent too much time admiring for their style
Those silly lines that tripped so off my tongue,
And never failed to bring to me a smile.
But since I haven't got a time machine,
I'll do my best to keep to this, my scheme.