The English Sonnet

The most rewarding thing about teaching is when your learners surprise you. They take an assignment that you have given them and they run with it. I have been teaching my grade 9s the English Sonnet,its  structure, thought patterns and themes. I then challenged them to write their own sonnets using the same conventions. Below are two of the sonnets I enjoyed the most:

Burn My Heart By Lehlohonolo Dube

Your eyes compete with the sun's glare every day
questioning if later yourself would be the sun.
Oh how I'd watch you rise every single day
your brightness pierces me like a bullet from a gun
The sun is too hot for me to hold
although you are just as hot, you aren't as big.
you would make the perfect fit, truth be told
If my love for you is a hole, so on I dig.
But let the sun be for we can't live without it
as I can not be without yourself
to replace it you would become with it
but with you out of this world I'd be by myself
shine on, that is what you are meant to do
as forever you will burn my heart too.



By Keletso Nakedi

What better word to use than love
because it is all that you give
as white as that beautiful dove
you are all that I need to live
Your voice as deep as the base in that song -
the beat that is pumping at the pace of my heart
what could ever possibly go wrong?
 our love can never fall apart
oh yes my love for you will always grow
even with the pains it may come with
when you are in my sight my eyes will blow
your love only comes once like snow
I vow to love you as big as the sun
and promise you never to run.