A sonnet is like a little explosion. First there is the idea. Such an idea arrives in the mind from the outside, like a text message. Ping. There it is. When thoughts begin to stream and mingle around the idea, one must be quick and catch them in lines. These lines then must rhyme: ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Ideally, there are ten syllables in a line, not counting silent ones.
One is caught in a little time bubble universe while writing a sonnet. One must grab all that is given in that very moment.
Before Visser wrote this series of sonnets, One Hundred and Fifty-Four Sonnets, she had never written a sonnet. The first sonnet in this bundle was the second sonnet she ever wrote. The second sonnet she ever wrote is the first sonnet in this bundle. Then Chris asked her why she likes sonnets. She explained in an email: I just like sonnets. There's something comforting about them. They spring to mind easily.
She explained in a sonnet:
I don't know where they come from these sonnets
They appear through me rather than from me
Their onset is on planets and comets
Amongst trees and in the depths of the seas
She decided to write hundred and fifty-four sonnets, just like Shakespeare. She wrote a sonnet a day and put them on her Facebook page, where they were liked, loved or even cared for by a small group of regulars.
Hundred and fifty-four days later, she wrote the last sonnet of this bundle. Whether it will be her very last sonnet indeed remains to be seen. The question is, have the sonnets improved over these hundred and fifty-four days of practice, or have they gotten worse? Or did they remain of the same quality? What do their graphs look like? How do they fluctuate? It is for the reader to find out and judge.
Hundred Fifty Four Sonnets PAPERBACK by Suzanne Visser
Suzanne Visser LLM (1957) began her writing career in the Netherlands. She published through several good publishing houses such as Atlas, Leopold and Bert Bakker.
Her novel De Vismoorden; The Fish Murders, was translated into French, German, and Spanish. Clear Mind Press has now published this successful book in English. Jonathan Smith did the translation.
Visser has lived in Australia since 2000. She now writes in English. The Fish Murders is the first novel we published.
The Elephant's Tooth is a work of non-fiction. Both books came out at about the same time. Visser is a versatile and productive writer.
Her latest book is Hundred Fifty Four Sonnets.