sonnet and analysis

A ring, floats so heavenly through the air
Falls into darkness, plunges to sin.
Perfect, spherical, its shape forebears,
An omen of circles and life it transmits
Circles in circles, round within round,
Its form tells a tale of life and then death
Or is it from death that life has abound?
From a baby’s first cry, to it’s final breath.
Light as a feather, dense as a weight,
This shape has caught your hungry mind.
It is in this, that you cast your hate,
But at the same time, you love it divine.
What is this circle? I’ll have you know,
It is nothing more than a ring made of dough.


In the beginning of my poem, I tried to make the ring seem like some sort of mysterious object, a halo, or maybe a ring of power (Lord of the Rings). Using words like forbear, and omen, I tried to make it a little ominous and dark. The first two lines are meant to contrast each other, using heavenly and darkness. It also is secretly describing a doughnut’s journey to the display racks, a bag, and finally, into the stomach. It’s fall through the air reflects its path from the oven to the warm display racks, and it’s plunge to darkness and sin shows it falling into the dim recesses of the stomach, and becoming evil fat.
Next, I tried to give meaning to the round shape, and make it seem even more surreal and dark. Talking about death and life and circles made it sound deep. This was the most profound meaning that I could draw from something like a doughnut. After, the next four lines move away from this philosophical stuff, and move more to the nature of the doughnut. A doughnut conjures up images of light, fluffy sweet dough; while at the same time has many negative connotations of weight gain.
Now, almost everyone likes to eat doughnuts, but they are almost always portrayed as EVIL because they are bad for you. That being said, it is very hard for someone to resist a doughnut. Even the shape draws you in. if it were just a hunk of glazed sweet bread, it would not be nearly as appealing as this wonderful ring shape.
I also hinted at the fact that you eat the doughnut by saying that your mind is hungry for it. It could be that your mind is yearning for this mystery, or you are simply hungry for doughnut. Many people hate doughnuts because they are “fattening” and you throw your hatred at it. However, you still enjoy it, and one might say you even love it. The last lines simply spell out the nature of this mysterious ring, a doughnut.
In this poem, I really wanted to make lots of contrasts. The dark and heavy beginning to the light ending was one that I made, as well as life and death as a contrast, and also a connection. I started my poem with a deep dark meaning. Life and death are not in a line, but a circle. This was the idea behind the beginning of the poem. Later, I transitioned into a lighter note on the nature of the doughnut. I did not make all of my lines 10 syllables, because I felt that the irregularity reflected the differences, and I was also creating a contrast between the perfection of the subject matter and the imperfection of the lines. Plus, it just sounded better that way.
Originally, I had written a sonnet about something else, something that I have already forgotten about. (It wasn’t very good.) Then, when I brought it in the next day, I found that Alex had written about a waffle dog. I overheard his discussion with Mrs. Shigemitsu about how to write an analysis paper on waffle dogs. I knew that my original poem/idea wasn’t descriptive enough, and was already fishing around for a new sonnet topic. This idea really struck me.
Recently, I began to use the poetry method of describing something, but not revealing its nature until the end. This helps to reveal important truths about the thing, and can also be used to make metaphors. I like giving things double meanings. I decided to take on the challenge, as Alex did, to write a poem about the significance of a seemingly mundane object. Food seemed like a good choice, so I decided to use a doughnut.
In my sonnet, I was trying to get across that even though something appears serious and dark, you could still take a positive outlook on it. Now a doughnut is not exactly a positive outlook, but it is light and a little humorous. Not everything is what it immediately appears to be. Fun can be found in anything, so, like my poem did, lighten up.

Sonnet

Heavenly Ring

A ring, floats so heavenly through the air
Falls into darkness, plunges to sin.
Perfect, spherical, its shape forebears,
An omen of circles and life it transmits
Circles in circles, round within round,
Its form tells a tale of life and then death
Or is it from death that life has abound?
From a baby’s first cry, to it’s final breath.
Light as a feather, dense as a weight,
This shape has caught your hungry mind.
It is in this, that you cast your hate,
But at the same time, you love it divine.
What is this circle? I’ll have you know,
It is nothing more than a ring made of dough.