In Defense of the Sonnet
Rachel Rice ©2005
 

This is written to defend the sonnet
With all its trials, tribulations, woes.
Poets like it well, depend upon it
And only the faint-hearted are its foes.

Spenser, Shakespeare, Keats, and Milton, too
Appreciated its fine shapeliness.
With form of wonder and impassioned hue
Expressed in it their views of humanness.

And when, of late, myself intimidated
As in the presence of great art perfected
Attempt a verse like this one now and hate it
Take comfort that it’s not the first rejected.

The sonnet form’s anthologized, collected.
Be not afraid to make it your selected