I am offering you some tips based on my own experiences as a beginner writer of poetry.I wanted to write a sonnet so I used the first line of Gray’s Elegy to get the desired number of “Feet” in the line:
“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day” is the first line.
So I could copy that and produce
“My heart‘s as lonely as a wounded bird”
I find once you have a first line it is often not too hard to write a second
My heart’s as lonely as wounded bird
That’s been deserted by its native flock.
Now in those two linesI have compared the heart to a sick bird left behind perhaps when birds migrate for the winter.So this will give rise to more comparisons as I continue
My heart’s a lonely as wounded bird
That’s been deserted by its native flock.
And so its plaintive cries are never heard
And silence seems its very soul to mock.
As you get further into the sonnet you are restricted by the form and also by needing to connect symbolically with what you have already written
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My heart’s as lonely as wounded bird
That’s been deserted by its native flock.
And so its plaintive cries are never heard
And silence seems its very soul to mock.
What choices has this weary bird to make;
When chirpings used for contact are not heard?
When silent are the trees around the lake
Where alien beings care not for a bird.
No tears nor wailing help when I’m alone alone
Unwillingness makes such wounds hard to bear.
[Shall it sing out and sigh until it’s done?
[{Shall I sing out and sigh until I’m done?]
[its unknown anguish brings no help nor care.]
[My unknown anguish brings not help nor care]
For nature has no kindness in the end,
My heart is shivering as the dark descends.
I have not done any editing as yet.Usually I do quite a lot but I wanted you to see my first attempt.
I have now done some editing…see critique and bracketing above
Critique of sonnet
It was about the heart,the bird was only a symbolic representation so it should have returned to the heart more explicitly.
Too many words like and,so,then,when, etc
I
How my heart sings 