Attributed to Henrry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET - also known as the English Sonnet - is a fourteen line poem that has a pivot (change of meaning and/or direction). The pivot occurs in the Shakespearean sonnet somewhere between the eighth and thirteenth line.



Example by Troy Camplin:

Mountain Lakes

The big lakes in the West are all dark blue -
Lake Tahoe, the Great Salt Lake, and Bear Lake -
Blue under the open sky, a dark hue
That can make newcomers think they are fake.
They are not the blue of a turquoise rock.
They are not blue like the blue of the sky.
They are not the blue of an endless flock
Of mountain bluebirds soon ready to fly.
They are blue like the blue on the border
Of blue and indigo in a rainbow,
An endless blue and circular order
That makes your soul merge in its endless flow,

Blue like a dark Indian sapphire,
And bringing the heart as much desire.