Fanfiction: Ursa Departs (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

[nebroadwe]

Title: Sonnet: Ursa Departs
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character(s): Ursa
Pairing(s): None.
Rating: G
Word Count: 107
Warnings: None.
A/N: I was mugged by a sonnet on Friday and spent the weekend recovering from the shock and then pummeling the mugger into (barely) postable shape. Sonnets are hard -- and I'm not sure why I keep diving into seventeenth-century poetry and poetic forms when I write Avatar 'fic -- cf. here and here -- but perhaps it has something to do with being an English major. Concrit welcomed with pretty rooms (and bonus gold to aery thinness beat to anyone who spots the reference :-). Crossposted from nebroadwe to avatar_fans and avatarfic.
Dedication(s): For William Shakespeare, il miglior fabbro.

---

She's never gone but where her going's known
Nor come but where her welcome is assured --
Hawk-heralded, by rumor's wings outflown;
What's needful to her comfort long procured
Or whistled up in haste; her way prepared
By liv'ried outriders, as fits her state;
Her hosts all deference, no effort spared
To earn her gentle protest of surfeit --
Till now, when with laborious steps and sore,
She gains the ridge's broken summit, spent --
Behind, the royal court, her home no more;
Ahead, the desert of her banishment --
Like an explorer at the utmost North,
For whom all ways are one, and that one, forth.

---

[Acknowledgments: Avatar: The Last Airbender was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko; copyright for this property is held by Viacom International, Inc. All rights reserved.]

Comments

[pinkelephant42.livejournal.com]

This is lovely, so much emotion, and you portray Ursa as such a strong woman. :D

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Figuring out what the "turn" was gave me fits for a while; I had Ursa arriving at the house on Ember Island for a while (all empty and damp and cheerless), but I realized pretty quickly that I couldn't do that in six lines. Then I tried summarizing the hazards of travel, but I couldn't get the rhymes to work. So she just struggled up the hill and paused for a minute to realize that she could go anywhere and it was all unknown territory. I'm a little bummed that I couldn't tie the end more closely to the beginning, but maybe next time ...

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm ... the in-text reference is to John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning" and that of the dedication to Eliot, right? :)

That said, bravo! Wonderful, as usual.

[(Anonymous)]

Ack, and "Elegy XX"!

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Close enough: "We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms" is from "The Canonization," but you nailed all the others. :-)

[aerodactylus.livejournal.com]

Whoa...I am impressed. Speaking as someone who can't write poetry (much less sonnets,) worth a damn, it's really cool to see such a well crafted bit of wordsmithing.

Ol' Willy Shakes would be proud.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Heh. My usual go-to form for sonnets is Petrarchan, not Shakespearian, but then I realized I had "assured" as a line ending and could not imagine finding three other rhyme words for an abba abba octave. So Shakespeare it was. (I did put the turn after the second quatrain, though. Shakespeare does that occasionally, so it's okay. Phew.)

[sannask.livejournal.com]

niiiiiiiice.

I can't reconcile
"By liv'ried outriders, as fits her state;"
with the iamb... i'm getting emphasis on the 'ers' of 'outriders'. perhaps
'By liv'ried riders, as befits her state;'?

but man. /man/. that's awesome. and it makes me want to know what happened to her at the end!!

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I can't reconcile
"By liv'ried outriders, as fits her state;"
with the iamb... i'm getting emphasis on the 'ers' of 'outriders'. perhaps
'By liv'ried riders, as befits her state;'?

I'm playing with the meter there: I've got my ten syllables, but the outriders get to bounce along briefly in a pair o'dactyls, like hoofbeats. It's a bit precious, but I couldn't resist. I think the early draft of that line went something like, "By brave outriders, as befits her state" and I got tired of looking for a better word than "brave," hit "liveried," and rejiggered the line.

... it makes me want to know what happened to her at the end!!

My "Zuko and Aang find Ursa / What Ursa Really Did That Night" novel has been percolating in my head again recently. Maybe I'll make a push at it during NaNo. I know what happens; I just keep getting intimidated by the idea of writing a novel.

[findmyantidrug.livejournal.com]

Woah, man, this...wow. I mean, wow. This whole thing is positively brilliant, but the last two lines are my very favorite. Marvelous.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Brilliance I disclaim, but I'm glad you like my ditty. (I've been cataloging Milton all morning -- believe me, it's a ditty. :-) I wrote the last two lines before tackling the four that immediately precede them: I had to figure out where I was going before I could decide how to get there.

[r-kimono.livejournal.com]

Wow. I read this as the prelude to a fic (you know how some authors put relevant poems at the beginning?), and I couldn't believe it when I realized the poem *was* the fic. I mean that as a compliment - the poem seemed very true to the Shakespearian mold, especially in the language and 'pace' of the line. I especially liked the 'turn', both literal (Ursa looking back at her former home) and poetic. Very lovely. <3

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I read this as the prelude to a fic (you know how some authors put relevant poems at the beginning?) ...

Yep. (http://nebroadwe.livejournal.com/99694.html) :-)

... I couldn't believe it when I realized the poem *was* the fic. I mean that as a compliment - the poem seemed very true to the Shakespearian mold, especially in the language and 'pace' of the line. I especially liked the 'turn', both literal (Ursa looking back at her former home) and poetic.

Thanks much! You know, I hadn't realized that I had doubled the "turn" until you mentioned it -- but when you put things together properly, they end up doing more than you planned. I'm glad the pace worked, particularly. The real trick to writing metered poetry is getting enough agreement between your diction and the meter that neither sounds forced. (sannask may be right that I'm pushing things with "liv'ried outriders" going into dactyls, now I look again. On the other hand, it was quite relieving to sit at my desk making hoofbeat claps in between agonizing over the final quatrain, so I think I'll let it stand.)

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. I don't know the first thing about attempting to write a sonnet, so I can't comment technically, but major points for making it pretty, making it flow well, and, you know, for even attempting it, because it's something different and interesting. I approve!

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Thank you! The praise of the praiseworthy, etc. :-) I'm not sure why I attempted this, except that the first two quatrains came by and socked me over the head at work. I haven't seen much 'fic poetry in any of my fandoms except the angsty adolescent free verse that everyone writes and then destroys sometime after graduating from college, all but the copy you gave to your best friend, who then embarasses you with it at your thirtieth birthday party. Maybe I can start a fashion for sonnets?