"Blank Sonnet" Essay

"Blank Sonnet" Essay by Tracy Au (2006)

George Elliot Clarke expresses despair in his poem “Blank Sonnet” (pg.390). He provides imagery such as snow compared to script, drowning in a sea, the poor communication with his lover, and the use of alcohol to numb his depression over a dissatisfactory relationship. He refers to a sad story from Greek mythology to convey his feelings and to evoke a deep sense of melancholy.

The structural elements of this poem are that it’s free verse and doesn’t have a rhyme scheme except for “Lovely Shelley.” Those two words are assonants because it ends with an “e.” It isolates that to get the reader’s attention. Clarke expresses a first person point of view because he mentions “I” in the poem to make it more personal.

“Blank Sonnet” is different from an English sonnet (also known as Shakespearean sonnet) because an English sonnet has to rhyme. It is not a Miltonic sonnet either because there isn’t a volta after the octave. A Petrarchan sonnet is when the first eight lines are about a problem and the remaining six lines comments on the problem. Clarke’s sonnet does not fit the description because all fourteen lines are about the problem. Most sonnets express love, but this doesn’t. It is more of a sad and frustrated love poem where the speaker is trying to connect with his lover, but is unable to because he is too drunk to communicate. The speaker’s relationship with alcohol is not favorable and neither is the relationship with Shelley.

There are many examples of figurative language in this poem. “Blank Sonnet” uses mainly similes. His choice of words: “Undulant hurt, so body snaps and curls/ Like flower.” Clarke compares pain to something as beautiful as a flower. I interpret it as a shockwave of emotional pain flowing through his body and mind. The simile: “I step through snow as thin as script” (Line 4) has snow as the tenor and script as the vehicle. Thin is the grounds which means the relationship weak and its breaking.

“Icarus-like, I’ll fall,” (Line 10) is referring to the Greek myth about Daedalus’s son Icarus who escaped from Crete. Icarus escapes, but because he did, it led to his death. This allusion is a bittersweet story that contributes to the poem because it is depressing. Even when some good fortune comes upon someone, it will ultimately be the end for him. The speaker identifies with the myth when he gets along with his lover, they will inevitably break up.

Clarke writes about language. “I have no use for measured, cadenced verse/ If you won’t read.” (Lines 9-10) The speaker says that: “If you won’t read” is like writing poems to his lover and she won’t read it. “I want the slow, sure, collapse of language” means he doesn’t want to speak to or be around anyone. He wants to stay isolated. He is saying, “If you would listen to me, would you care what I had to say?” Alcohol is the tenor. Another reason for the “collapse of language” is that it’s a vehicle for saying that after getting drunk, people tend to slur their words and are unable to speak properly. A common motif is how he drowns his sorrows by drinking alcohol. “Watch white stars spin dizzy as drunks, and yearn/ To sleep beneath a patchwork quilt of rum,” (Lines 5-6), and “Washed out by alcohol” (Line 8).

A metaphor in this poem: “To sleep beneath a patchwork quilt of rum” mean to fall asleep through drinking liquor. He wants to drink so much that he will pass out and have a deep sleep. “A patchwork quilt of rum” provides comfort and Clarke writes in the poem. Clarke often uses metaphorical terms such as: “Across vision to drown in the white sea.” It is a metaphor because there is no such thing as a white sea. The function of using “the white sea” is to contrast the dark theme of the depression in this poem.

George Elliot Clarke’s “Blank Sonnet” is a love poem that expresses pain and sorrow that a dysfunctional relationship can bring. The consequences of a destructive relationship can acquire alcoholism and depression. The alcohol then provide negative side effects where the speaker is then unable to communicate with his lover and made it worse between the both of them. The relationship is then beyond repair because the speaker can’t tell his lover how he feels about her, and the lover would not care to listen.