A Poetry Soup First - Craig Cornish's Blog

To me, it's a poetry accomplishment beyond comprehension. For instance, there are relatively few who can write a traditional English/Shakespearean Sonnet correctly in true iambic pentameter and even fewer who can do so while producing unforced and artful poetry. Of those who can, Mark Massey among them, not many have written a Crown of Sonnets, which is 7 sonnets where the last line of each becomes the first line of the next - among other rules. Even more rare are those who have written a Heroic Crown which is 15 sonnets where the final sonnet is made up of the first line of the preceeding 14 with rhyme scheme/form/cohesiveness and poetic art still applying - that's 210 lines of poetry mind you!  BUT, Mark is not stopping there...he is in the process of writing 14 heroic crowns (210 sonnets) and an additional sonnet to equal 2,954 lines of poetry in strict form; that's 14,770 iambic meters! The poets who have ever done this in world history wouldn't fill a short bus, and the poets who have written one about the American Civil War is zero until now. In addition he is using the Gettysburg Heroic Crown as a Volta which is both traditional and clever since the Gettysburg battle was the "turning" point of the war. One of my interests is the civil war and I can say that his depictions are historically accurate in addition to being artfully presented. Any of us would be proud to have written even one of his poems in this epic achievement. The Heroic Crowns he has produced so far are included under the short story section here on Poetry Soup. Bravo indeed Mark!