Voices of Light (Sonnet)

[MorpheusSandman]

(loosely inspired by Richard Einhorn's composition)

A madrigal mass of Palestrina plays
From voices as easy as the ether
In robes of gold and white they shine as light
Reflecting through the fiery halls forever.
It echoes off the marble balustrades
And sends the doves towards the sun in flight.
I looked into the orb and saw it burn
Away the carnal and all life in turn:
The verses melted down to liquid night
As blistered eyes were rooted in the day
In disappearing blurs of their endeavor
Covered in the ashen snows of white.
There’s nothing left to do but bite and sever
The silver line of life to kill what stays.

[blank|verse]

Hmm, not bad. Interesting rhyme scheme.

I'm not familiar with the music you're describing (and maybe that would make me understand what's going on a bit more - particularly towards the end!) but I enjoyed the flow of the poem. Other sonnets I've read on this site (maybe including yours) tend to be too end-stopped, and you can almost hear the writer straining to make the next line work; I think this largely avoids that and is all the better for it.

I get the sense you were trying to convey the music through the lines of the sonnet. To that end, I think the alliteration in the first two lines is a bit intrusive; I think you would do well to let go of such cheap tricks and let your words and rhythms do the talking instead. For example:

It echoes off the marble balustrades
is a far superior line to any that rely on alliteration.

I wasn't too keen on the end; after all the lyricism:

There’s nothing’s left to do
strikes a oddly prosaic note (and just watch the typo: nothing's).

As a general point, I would say try and concentrate on a 'less is more' approach. The start:

From voices as easy as the ether
In robes of gold and white they shine as light
Reflecting through the fiery halls forever.
feels like there's a bit too much going on - are the voices in robes, or the singers? and 'What fiery halls?' (I'd also be tempted to put a full stop after 'ether'.)

[jadrianne]

Why don't you publish your works?

Nowadays very few people can write sonnets and I honestly believe that yours will be appreciated .

[MorpheusSandman]

Thanks to jadrianne for the extreme compliment. I don't know if anything of mine is worthy of being published and I wouldn't know how to get them published if I thought they were. As always, thanks to blnk vrz for the criticism; even when we disagree I love how you make me critically think about poetry.


Interesting rhyme scheme.This is one I want to experiment with some because I haven't seen it anywhere else: ABCBAC DD CABCBA - You move the couplet to the center and on either side you have a mirroring rhyme scheme. I think it provides for some interesting formal and developmental variations, like how here I use the couplet for the volta, basically giving the piece a sestet/octet structure instead of the typical reverse.


I'm not familiar with the music you're describingThe story goes that while browsing some library archives Einhorn came across a print of Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent masterpiece called The Passion of Joan of Arc. He was so moved it inspired him to write a score for it. The score was so successful the print was restored and began showing around the country set to Einhorn's score. It was eventually released on Criterion DVD and is now available for everyone to see. The film was one of the greatest of all time to begin with, but Einhorn's score really added another, deeper dimension to it. I think the piece was loosely inspired by both. Especially Dreyer's use of architecture and high-key white lighting (hence the "white" motif). I guess I took the burning imagery from Joan being burned at the stake at the end of the film.


Other sonnets I've read on this site (maybe including yours) tend to be too end-stopped, and you can almost hear the writer straining to make the next line work; I think this largely avoids that and is all the better for it.It's amazing that you mentioned this because as I wrote that central couplet I was immediately struck by the idea that most every sonnet I write IS incredibly end-stopped. I'd never thought about this before but in writing this it suddenly kind of bothered me and I tried to minimize the effect somewhat. I really avoided this in my narrative piece with sonnets which were constantly enjambed to the point they didn't really read like sonnets and in fact the punctuation - not the rhyme - really provided the rhythm. This is something I'm definitely going to work on and it's a testament to your insight you mentioned it specifically in this piece.


I think the alliteration in the first two lines is a bit intrusive; I think you would do well to let go of such cheap tricks and let your words and rhythms do the talking instead.Point duly noted, though much like anachronisms I'm a huge fan of aliteration, consonance, and assonance and many times my poems start unconsciously as thought-experiments with those devices (rhymes too).


I wasn't too keen on the end; after all the lyricism: strikes a oddly prosaic note (and just watch the typo: nothing's).Again, point duly noted. I wasn't a big fan of the ending myself, honestly. I had the idea of severing the silver lifeline but wasn't really sure how to set it up. "Nothing's" was undoubtedly a product of Microsoft Word's automatic spell checker thing which sometimes changes words without my noticing.


The start: feels like there's a bit too much going on - are the voices in robes, or the singers? and 'What fiery halls?' (I'd also be tempted to put a full stop after 'ether'.)The idea of dressing the voices (and not noting the singers) was another inspiration taken from the film which is notable for it's extreme use of close-ups which has the bizarre effect of making it almost as if the film is being presented by disembodied heads. So the idea of describing voices dressed in robes struck me as being similarly resonant. "What fiery halls?" - I'm not entirely sure if I had in mind heaven, hell, or both when I wrote much of this piece. That piece was more or less to set up the fire motif and connect the color motifs with their appropriate imagery counterparts.