I showed the pieces that I'm planning on entering in the Random House contest to my cousins after dinner. They immediately latched onto something that I'd not noticed before -- I use the word "I" frequently in my verses. In fact, in about 5500 words, I'd used it 287 times. This worked out to about 9 times per page, which wouldn't be bad if it was prose and the lines went right across the page. Instead, it's poetry, so I did a replace on it and made it bold, italic, underlined, and a font size larger so that I can't miss them on the page.
Now the work begins!
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Wow! That's a whole hunk o' I's!!! Which got me thinking - I wonder how other poets faired in a similar "I" count of a large volume of their poetry.
I tried Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, which I know is a major inspiration in your poetic life. Of 16910 words, there were 290 I's (specifically, uppercase I with a blank space following, so I didn't unintentionally catch words that simply started with I). That works out to 1.7% of the total work.
I also tried Shakespeare's sonnets:
329 I's in 18438 words, which astonishingly is also 1.7%!
Yours at 287 of 5500 was 5.2% or a little more than 3 times their rate!
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