Author: Hasitha Adhikariarachchi

During a creative writing workshop I got the chance to learn the form of poetry, “Sonnet” (or sonette). Probably you have already read Shakespeare’s famous sonnet “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The basic rules of writing a sonnet are as follows (please note this is not a complete guide for writing a sonnet, but you can certainly try writing one by following these tips). 1. You should write 4 verses. Three verses with 4 lines and the last/fourth verse should have only 2 lines (altogether it must consist of 14 lines). 2. The third verse should change the direction of the poem (a twist or conflict). 3. It must be written in one of various standard rhyme schemes. 4. The last verse should summarize and leave the reader with a new, concluding image. The below given poem was the outcome of an exercise I did in the workshop. This was written by me and Debora (another participant of the workshop), where I wrote every other line and she wrote the rest of the lines. The rhyme scheme we followed is, A B A B C D C D E F E F G G Here is the sonnet we wrote (you might think it’s a very political poem, yes, it is). Oh Sri Lanka, How wonderful you look I’ve slept in your breast, I felt your...