Sonnets from a Floating Life

Readers often expect sonnets be written in the style of William Shakespeare. Don Moore, a devotee of the English poet, chose to write his own poems in that classic manner. With free-wheeling thoughts adhering to the iambic pentameter patterns of the 14 line sonnet, Moore explores many subjects beyond Shakespeare's English Renaissance realm. His interest in Asian legends, American music and life, astronomy, and mythology is penned in admiration of Shakespeare's craft. Moore's love poems echo the Bard of Avon's romantic sonnets. However, his compositions in rich verse are created for the contemporary reader. Applying tempered imagery to his poetic vision, Don describes himself in lines of his sonnet titled WILD.

"I, the poet, sit here singing my songs,

My songs over and over, back and forth

Like an excited caged beast who belongs

In the wild blackness of the Dipper's North.

I say that Poetry is a feeling

And I possess enough of lyric bent

To taste a bestial newness when I sing..."