Sonnets From Suburbia: More Candles Than Cake

By Penny Peyser

"Thoughtful, moving and very funny sonnets. I enjoyed them immensely". - Alan Arkin, Author & Oscar winning actor

"Unique and charming and frankly should be in every high school Shakespear

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sunnyside Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798988201304

Penny Peyser

Penny Peyser is an actress/writer/documentary filmmaker best known for "Rich Man, Poor Man", "All the President's Men", "The Tony Randall Show", "The Frisco Kid", "Crazy Like A Fox", and "Knots Landing". She wrote, produced and directed the award-winning feature documentary "Trying to Get Good: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon" with husband Doug McIntyre and apparently needing some quiet time, Penny also wrote, directed and produced "Stillpoint", an intimate look inside a northern Californian Zen meditation center. (Both films available on Vimeo). Lady Penelope and her obsession with iambic pentameter has appeared onstage and can be viewed at www.YouTube.com/sonnetsfromsuburbia. She is a 2018 winner of the Maria Faust Sonnet Contest and. her work has been published in "Defenestration", "Blood and Bourbon", "Chantwood Magazine" and "Rat's Ass Review" (yes there is such a publication" among others.She makes pizzas every Friday night, entertains two grandsons and tries to stop the cats from climbing the curtains. Favorite Yoga pose: Warrior Two. Consider yourself warned. www.PennyPeyser.com IMDB.me/pennypeyser @penpeyser

Book preview

Sonnets From Suburbia: More Candles Than Cake

© Copyright 2023 Penny Peyser

Edited by Brendan Constantine

Illustrations by Jarrad Crutcher

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN (paperback): 979-8-9882013-1-1

ISBN (ebook): 979-8-9882013-0-4

Library of Congress: 2022924141

Published by Sunnyside Press

For Doug McIntyre

my everything

Table of Contents

Prologue.

Part I: Bitter Twitter

Do Not Compare Me to a Summer’s Day

In Heaven Do We Have to Exercise?

Bitter Twitter

High Altitude Faith

Birthing Pains.

Familial

Celebrity Birthdays.

No Internet

Dear Friend

Got Courage?

Was the Quarantine So Bad?

PC Hell

Hot Yoga

None of Your Business

Called My Lover.

More Candles Than Cake.

The Old Man Wondered

Caffeinated Heart.

My Rod and My Staff.

Houseplants

Part II: Belated Wisdom

Our Yoga Teacher

I Have Run Out of Things to Tell My Shrink

In the Kitchen

Small Moment in the Car.

Garden of No Delight

Husband One or Two or Three?

Couples

Crystal Blue Persuasion

My Damned Astrologer

Graveside

Lent

Atonement

Sweet Young Thing.

Belated Wisdom.

For the Girls.

A Simple Can of Pledge

A Partial List of Complaints

The Choir.

Ukraine

Crisis Time.

When I Drop Dead

Part III: Wax and Wane

Say What?

Brilliant!

I Shan’t Disparage Marriage

Apologies Please

Poor Me

Passing Strange.

Long Division

Criticism

Too Many Words

So Many Exes, So Little Time.

Father’s Day

Coach Row 32

Oops

Hamlet.

So Needy

Diet Nazis

Hydration

Dinnertime

Christmas Table

All’s Not Lost

How ‘Bout a Short Experiment?.

My Will

Your Beard

What Kind of Idiot?

Thank God You Didn’t

Put Me in Thy Books

The Germaphobe

Alexa

Don’t Mean it When I Say…

Who Wants to Know?

Lowered Expectations.

Wax and Wane

Acknowledgements.

About the Author

Prologue

Dear friends, I’ll teach you how to write a sonnet.

Elizabethan is what I prefer.

‘t was good enough for Shakespeare; let’s get on it!

‘t is most familiar, scholars would concur.

Three quatrains and a couplet’s all you need,

with alternating rhymes, save for the end.

Add iambic pentameter indeed -

da dum, da dum, da dum – like heartbeats penned.

All subjects are fair game, so fear ye not.

Your Muse can take the playing field at will.

Observe the form most strictly to the dot,

or lack of grace will follow from your quill.

Do not begrudge the boundaries of