Sonnet 1Jose Garcia Villa

Jose Garcia Villa

About the poem

Sonnet 1

Jose Garcia Villa

Life

• Filipino poet, literary critic, short story writer,

and painter.

• Awarded National Artist of the Philippines title

for literature in 1973

• Received Guggenheim Fellowship in creative

writing

• introduced the "reversed consonance rime

scheme" in writing poetry thus he was known

as the “Comma Poet”.

• used the penname Doveglion

• He uses Modernism and surrealism as literary

movement.

Style

• Reversed consonance - "The last sounded

consonants of the last syllable, or the last

principal consonant of a word, are reversed

for the corresponding rhyme.

Example

Word Rhyme

Near Run Reign Rain Green

Comma poems

"The commas are an integral and essential part

of the medium: regulating the poem's verbal

density and time movement: enabling each

word to attain a fuller tonal value, and the line

movement to become more measures.”

It’s a lyric poem!

• A lyric poem is a comparatively short, non-

narrative poem in which a single speaker

presents a state of mind or an emotional

state.

Subcategories

1. Elegy

2. Ode

3. Sonnet

4. Dramatic monologue

5. Occasional poetry

Sonnet

• A sonnet is a poetic form which originated

in Italy.

• The term sonnet derives from the Italian

word sonetto, meaning "little song“.

Sonnet

• It signified a poem of fourteen lines that

follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific

structure.

• It was originally a love poem which dealt with

the lover’s sufferings and hopes.

Sonnet 1

Jose Garcia Villa

First two lines

• First, a poem must be magical,

Then musical as a sea-gull.

Following 2 lines…

• It must be a brightness moving

And hold secret a bird's flowering.

"There is beauty that is never stationary in the

poem. It gives grace with every rhyme. A poem

must gradually change from the beginning into

something more beautiful as the poem ends, like

the blossoming of flowers.

And so on…

It must be slender as a bell,

And it must hold fire as well.

A poem is not to be written full of

adjectives. A poem should have a spirit.

FatX

It must have the wisdom of bows

And it must kneel like a rose.

A good poem must show the right message a

poet conveys.

It must be able to hear

The luminance of dove and deer.

It must be able to hide

What it seeks, like a bride.

And over all I would like to hover

God, smiling from the poem's cover.

Thanks !