Valentine’s Day is coming, and you’re tired of the pre-fab cards, the stale chocolates, the tacky jewelry. You want to give your beloved something timeless, something real, something that can only come from you and isn’t being sold en masse in Wal-Marts across the country.

Why don’t you write a Shakespearean sonnet?

You may think, Whoa! I’m lucky if I can spell my name right when I sign my checks, Lady – I’m no writer. I admit that following in the footsteps of The Great One can sound a bit intimidating, because poets use words like “quatrain” and “iambic” to make it sound tricky; but a sonnet is no more difficult to write than a limerick, if you know the pattern to follow. (It will earn you a lot more brownie points than a limerick will, though.)

These are The Rules:

An English sonnet is always fourteen lines long. The lines are arranged like this:

The first twelve are in three groups of four lines each (a four-line group is called a “quatrain,” if you want to show off a little later). In this section you present the main idea of your poem.

The last two hang together in their own little group at the end, and they sort of wrap up the main idea from the first twelve lines. (The two-lines-that-rhyme thing is called a “couplet.” Because there are a “couple” of them – get it?)

Each line contains ten syllables. (They are thought of in groups of two, and poets call these two-syllable groups “iambs” – they are read with the accent on the second syllable. When the groups are arranged by fives – ya know, so you’ll have ten syllables – it’s called “pentameter,” so sonnets are said to be written in “iambic pentameter.” Try not to dwell on that.)

The main thing that makes a sonnet a sonnet is its rhyming scheme. It looks like this, where you rhyme the lines that end in matching letters:

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That’s really all there is to it. Most sonnets are about love or philosophy, which makes them perfect for spilling your feelings to your Significant Other.

And you just might give The Bard a run for his money!