Katie Tigani
Dr. Morillo
Poetry 207
Sonnet Project
Another Day Alone
I wait and wonder how slow time drags on
In frozen moments while my patience thaws;
I’m waiting on a ray to break the dawn
But wond’ring, will the sun break daily law?
The hands refuse to circle ‘round the dial
As shadows snicker, taking up your place;
These stopped hands hope for sun while darkness smiles -
In emptiness I stand, a sad disgrace.
No longer can the hands freeze time for you
My sun, why let the darkness triumph now?
My love, reliance was what pulled me through,
But without light, to emptiness I bow.
No choice has time but let the day begin -
Where are you, love? You’ve let the shadows win.
Explanation and Evaluation of “Another Day Alone”
To write effective poetry as an art form is a task in itself, but to write pertaining to particular restraints is perhaps an even more daunting task. I was surprised to discover, however, that writing a meaningful Shakespearean sonnet was not as gruelingly difficult as previously imagined. My poem “Another Day Alone” is highly symbolic and repetitive, obeying the rules of iambic pentameter and rhyme scheme for a sonnet to depict a waiting lover. The speaker, who is the lover, is waiting for their assumed partner to come back but is not confident upon their return, which was at one point considered reliable. Consequentially, by giving the poem the title “Another Day Alone,” I aimed to make the reliability of the supposedly returning partner ambiguous even though he or she is compared to the sun. The speaker wishes for the power to keep the day from beginning or the power to stop time, but as the tone slowly shifts in the third stanza, the last two lines expose that the sun is rising and the partner has not come back.
The main themes of the poem are loneliness and time, which are both depicted by the symbols of hands, as on a clock, rays of sunlight, and shadows. The employment of personification is meant to illustrate the hands as an ally to the speaker, attempting to aid he or she in their futile waiting although the speaker cannot control them. Contrastingly the darkness is personified as an evil rival with shadows as accomplices, trying to engulf the speaker in loneliness or emptiness and keeping the speaker from their ray of sunlight, which symbolizes hope. Once the day beings in the last two lines, however, the speaker realizes that the shadows have won because the lover, their sun, is not there.
In writing “Another Day Alone,” I hoped to compose a distinguished poem filled with symbolic imagery still slightly vague enough as to be open to varied interpretations. In addition I hoped to make my language sound poetic while still conforming to the rhyme and rhythm patterns required for a legitimate sonnet. One aspect I had difficulty with was interestingly the punctuation because I initially wrote the poem completely void of any formal writing rules like punctuation or capitalization. However, when I typed the poem I felt it necessary to place pauses through commas, dashes, and colons in between the certain images to help separate their meanings yet at the same time make them flow together in the whole piece. Pleased with my work as I may be, I think the clarity of the subject and speaker may not be considered as easily readable as the tone. Overall, I hope that this poem exemplifies my intelligence as a creative outlet.