Ring-a-Vicky (part 2)

Now where were we? Oh yes, Wisconsin. And I needed to come up with a brilliant idea to counter my diamond-ring-selecting cowardice.

If your internet attention span has forgotten yesterday: I was brilliant enough to know what sort of setting Vicky would like for her engagement ring (don't act so surprised - I am marrying her) but the diamond itself was another matter. Although I am an attentive, thoughtful fellow, it's not as if one's taste for diamonds can be ascertained from one's taste in drapery, nor do personal diamond preferences crop up in conversation too often or too naturally, and I wanted my proposal to be as much of a surprise as it could be. All I knew was that the diamond should be conflict-free - they look so much better without that taint of blood - but there is so much more too it than just that, so very much more.

I am what could generously be called a 'beginning poet'. (I promise I am not trying to show off with false modesty here.) I enjoy reading poetry, really I do. I studied poetry in my very useful university arts degree (English AND Philosophy). I've read almost a third of Stephen Fry's book. I'm a massive snob about other people's poems on the internet, especially if

they think that
broken lines and
Brobdingnagian words
and writing how they feel (sad)
makes for good
verse.

It doesn't.

I once wrote a pretty damn fine comedic sonnet to a female friend who was complaining about the rubbish romantic quality of her many suitors. She loved it, or so she said; it's hard to know for sure because I wrote it while on a particularly boring training course at work. Nevertheless, this opened up the possibility that I could, eventually, also finish a poem for Vicky, as she'd long hoped. I'd always meant to but couldn't ever show her anything because nothing was ever quite good enough. But, with the first lot of praise behind me (and Vicky's desire), I was eventually able to cobble something together. Vicky loved it (or so she said).

The point of this aside? I thought it would be a smashing idea to write another poem for Vicky, for my proposal, and pop that inside a ring box in lieu of the actual ring. Brilliant, yes? Solved all my problems. She still gets a surprise and I avoid the pressure of picking a perfect ring. Well, all I managed was to swap one kind of pressure for another. Now she needed the perfect sonnet.

It took me flipping ages and I spent whole afternoons staring at blank pieces of lined paper and losing weight through sweat, tearing out ever more of my precious remaining hair. Nothing ever quite worked. I wanted recurring ring and circle symbolism throughout. I wanted to show off the sort of ring I would have picked, with clever references to white gold and filigree banding (likening the entwining swirls on the ring to our entwining lives) and a lack of conflict (also serving as a reference to our own relationship, in addition to the diamond). I wanted the quatrains to stand for and move through the past, the present and the future, to summarise our relationship and encapsulate the promise that the ring would hold, and end with an emphasis on time unending, like a circle, like a diamond. I wanted to alternate masculine and feminine endings for each line as a sort of metrical pun about how we too would come together, not only in marriage but also to select this ring (plus the alternate endings also makes for a much more rhythmic read). I needed to work the word 'propose' into it without being clumsy. Above all, I needed to maintain iambic pentameter with the stresses falling on the right words without it sounding forced.

Apologies if the above makes me sound like an enormous wanker. I really just wanted to show how difficult it would be for a beginning poet to achieve all that in only a short time (I had decided to propose on Christmas Day because Vicky really loves Christmas and I thought proposing when she was already in a jolly mood would maximise my chances of getting a good response.)

In the end, I was really proud of what I was able to come up with. I still am. And, yes, Vicky loves it too. There was only one small hitch - but we'll get to that next time. And besides, how can one get hitched without a hitch from which to do it? HAHAHA - I am funny.