free fall sonnet

What we'll call a free fall sonnet is an "abNORMal" sonnet, which is intended to be partly comical but also expresses a point of view about strict form. I am a strong advocate of the philosophy that before you exercise the breaking of rules, you should first master the rules.  ee cummings is the best example I can offer for in his apparent "abuse" of the rules of grammar, usage and syntax, he USED those rules to express in a way few poets have been able to. Before you" misplace" punctuation so it has purpose and meaning, you must understand its RIGHTFUL usage and placement. (see his poem "blac!") as a quick example.

So I invented this "form" as an exercise for my students (almost half a century ago) after spending three weeks discussing the sonnet. Though there are NO exact rules, the poem should:

1  express an understanding of the strict sonnet form
2  work the concept that in the 20th (now 21st) century we can "play" with a strict form (just as Billy Collins did in his poem "Sonnet").

For example, a few notes on my free fall sonnet below:

1) My title attempts to point the reader in the right direction.
2) Meter Play:
     S1 mixes tetrameter (L1) with IP (L2-3 -- though not too smoothly LOL) with L4 being totally off-metered
     S2 is Iambic Pentameter throughout
3) Though I keep a sonnet rhyme scheme throughout, S4 breaks into an impromptu free-verse mode (in ee cummings fashion)

There is also a play on Shakespeare (the sonnet-master): 
S1-L3 -- maybe saying "A sonnet by any other name would smell as sweet"
S1-L1 -- The quote from Othello (which if this were a forum for interpretation could conjure some other motives of the poet)

There you have  it --- a form without the strict form --- hence, a "free fall sonnet".  Here's mine:


Without Form or Substance
^{An abNORMal Sonnet}

If thou shalt ask, “How came you thus?” *
In free verse or sonnet, I claim it would seem 
that by any name...what is all the fuss? 
'tis not midsummer… yet this form is a dream. 

Ah yes, I saw it ... sprinkled down on me, 
like fairy dust with ambiguity; 
a timeless, metered bit of poetry, 
I can also break rules... and you can see 

that normally, with reason I write. 
In 
free-fall, 
even 
l e t t e r s 
lose 
their place; 
but then I'll tuck them back, nice and tight 
not knowing if they reach your space. 

And time, like the rose, becomes the thorn
that pricks the poem; it won't stay still-born.

_{* "How came you thus " >>> Othello -- ct II, Scene iii, 1447}