Hazel Hall is not afraid to push boundaries as she explores the traditional sonnet, its connections with classical Japanese forms, and their shared musicality. She points out similarities between these forms, but also celebrates their differences. This collection includes sonnets with haiku or tanka attached, a sonnet using the same rhyme throughout, a sonnet created with fourteen lines of single-line haiku and a fourteen line ghazal in iambic pentameter. Hazel also experiments with rhyming styles, returning to basic concepts of melody and rhyme in her quest to discover 'At what point is a sonnet not a sonnet?' She observes that the sonnet form is barely recognisable in some of her hybrids. Do you agree? Readers are invited to draw their own conclusions. They are also invited to experiment for themselves.
According to Beethoven, once you know the rules, you can break them. When it comes to traditional end-lines, octave, sestet and pentameter in a sonnet, Hazel Hall is well practiced. However, her unrhymed experimental free-verse, haibun as sonnets, along with combinations of other Japanese genres like tanka in this collection, not only give credence to Beethoven's affirmation.
