Crown of Sonnets
Quick answer: A crown of sonnets links seven sonnets, each opening with the previous poem's last line. Learn how the corona works, famous examples and how to write one.
A crown of sonnets, or corona, is a linked series of seven sonnets in which the last line of each poem becomes the first line of the next, and the final line of the seventh repeats the first line of the first. The circle closes on itself, which is where the crown image comes from. Each sonnet must stand alone and also serve the chain.
Poets take on a crown when one sonnet is not enough: a grief, an obsession, a long argument with the self. The repeated lines force the sequence to keep re-examining its own claims, because a line that ended one poem confidently must open the next and survive fresh scrutiny. Readers meet crowns most often in devotional poetry and, increasingly, in contemporary collections.
How It Works
The mechanics are simple to state and hard to execute. Write sonnet one; its closing line, word for word or lightly varied depending on how strict you are being, opens sonnet two, and so on through seven poems. Line ninety-eight must circle home to line one. Traditionally no rhyme word used in the linking lines is repeated elsewhere in the crown, though modern poets relax this.
Consider an invented hinge: a sonnet ending 'I learned to love the house by leaving it' would force the next poem to begin with departure and argue forward from there. Good crowns choose linking lines that can face both ways, closing one thought and opening another.
Where You Will See It
John Donne's 'La Corona' is the classic English example, seven sonnets circling the life of Christ, each handing its last line to the next like a relay. Lady Mary Wroth wove a crown into her sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus in 1621, the first by an Englishwoman. In our own era Marilyn Nelson's 'A Wreath for Emmett Till' uses the even more demanding heroic crown to hold an almost unspeakable subject steady, proof that the form's discipline can carry the heaviest material.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Draft your seven linking lines first, as a skeleton, before writing any full sonnet. Each should be a strong, portable sentence: concrete enough to end a poem, open enough to start one. Then write the sonnets around them, and expect to revise the links as the poems teach you what they are about. A crown usually takes weeks, not days; treat it as a project, and let each sonnet rest before you solder the next joint.
What poets can take from this
- Write all seven linking lines as a standalone list first and test how they read in a circle.
- Choose linking lines with a verb in them; static lines are hard to reopen.
- Allow small variations in the repeated lines if the syntax demands it, but keep the echo audible.
- Vary the emotional temperature across the seven poems so the crown has a shape, not a plateau.
- Finish a full rough draft before polishing any single sonnet, or the chain will fight you.
Try it yourself
Draft the seven linking lines for a crown of sonnets about a year that changed you, one line per season plus three for the people involved. Then write sonnet one.
Questions
How many sonnets are in a crown of sonnets?
The traditional corona has seven linked sonnets. The expanded version, the heroic crown or sonnet redoublé, has fifteen, where a master sonnet supplies or collects the linking lines.
Do the repeated lines in a crown have to be identical?
Strict tradition says yes, word for word. Many contemporary poets allow small changes in tense, pronoun or punctuation, as long as the reader clearly hears the line returning.
Can a crown of sonnets use unrhymed sonnets?
Yes. The crown is defined by its linked and circling lines, not by any one rhyme scheme, so free-verse fourteen-liners can form a crown, as many modern examples do.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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