Sweep Me

What is so attractive about the sonnet is the language it uses. Typically, it makes heavy use of imagery, and the sonnet is so limited (only fourteen lines) that the poets who write them tend to use unusual and powerful diction, in order to create interest.

The sonnet seems driven by sounds, even though that was the title of the last chapter and our current one is supposed to focus on external form. The classic sonnet was written in iambic pentameter, and then there is the inevitable and fluid rhyme scheme.

Take, for example, Diane Ackerman's Sweep Me through Your Many-Chambered Heart. It does not follow any particular metrical pattern (no iambs), nor does it follow suit to either the Shakespearean or Petrarchan forms of the sonnet. Instead it forms a hybrid variation of the two, borrowing the basic rhyme pattern of the Petrarchan sonnet (abba abba cdecde) and combining it with the variation and the paired, two line, stand-alone rhyme of the Shakespearean (abab cdcd efef gg). The hybrid rhyme scheme looks like this: abba cddc ee fgfg.

It is well-known that I am no fan of rhyme, but the form of the sonnet is inoffensive to me. It is subtle and full of grace, clever rather than forced or grating. I found the sounds of Sweep Me so pleasing that I re-read that sonnet several times, which is unusual for me. The language was so interesting and formed around such hard consonants and bright vowels. Look at the first two lines, and the assonance achieved by the repetitive, bright "e" vowel:

Sweep me through your many-chambered heart
if you like, or leave me here, flushed

Or how about the consonance and alliteration of the middle lines (and the continued assonance generated by use of the recurring "e")?

...Weeks
later, till I felt your arms around 
me like a shackle, heard all the sundown
wizardries the body speaks.  

Also, I'm a fan of enjambment (if no one could tell). It makes the movement of the sonnet more fluid and--appropriately--sweeping. It fosters a sense of urgency and excitement in the language, so that your heart is beating rapidly by the time you get to that delightful and peculiar turn of phrase that concludes the sonnet:

thinking I'd heard your footfall on the stair,
 I listened, heartwise, for the knock.