Shakespeare

Poem-A-Day April 23: Doubt thou the stars are fire

Hello Friends,
Since it’s his birthday, today I’m sharing just a few lines by the Bard himself William Shakespeare, taken from Hamlet Act 2, scene 2. Polonius is reading aloud a letter Hamlet has written to Ophelia.
Enjoy,
Ællen

Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.

■

Poem-A-Day April 23: Since it’s his birthday…

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

■

Hello Friends —

Happy Bard Day! April 23 is celebrated as the birthday of William Shakespeare. The Bard was supposedly born on this day in 1564 and also supposedly died on the exact same day 52 years later, April 23, 1616. The monologue above is from Act V, scene 5 of Macbeth, when Macbeth learns of Lady Macbeth’s death.

Ever wonder how Shakespeare was able to stay in perfect iambic pentameter so much of the time? Well, it certainly didn’t hurt that he made up over 1,700 of the words he used — often taking known words and twisting them into new parts of speech; noun into verb, verb into adjective, etc. — so that they fit into his syllabic structure. In addition to individual words, Shakespeare also coined many phrases we still use today.

Other literary works that derive their titles from just this one Shakespeare passage include “Out, Out —” by Robert Frost and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.

Whether it’s today’s selection or “Jabberwocky” (those of you who have been on this list a few years!) or another piece that speaks to you, I strongly encourage you to pick a poem to read out loud to someone else, at least once a year, and consider learning it by heart. When you’ve memorized a poem, no one can ever take it away from you. Even locked in a dark cell. Or stranded on a deserted island. Or in the last syllable of recorded time.

Memorization is why we invented rhyme and meter and poetry itself in the first place! So an orator could travel from place to place and recite a piece, or one generation could pass on a story to the text. The first poems were never written down; they were all oral and committed to memory, aided by patterns in rhythm and sound we now call poetry. That memorization skill is a bit of a lost art — but I still think one of the most poetic things you can do is to memorize a poem.

Shakespeare indicates in many places he understands the power of words to outlive their authors. While his character Macbeth says in this passage “and then is heard no more,” it’s possible or even likely Shakespeare dreamed and aspired toward a world in which these very words were heard over and over again, even after his own death. You could argue Shakespeare believed the opposite of what this, one of his most famous passages, actually says. This passage may be more about conveying thoughts and feelings that many people have experienced, about how existence feels sometimes — rather than making fundamental claims about the nature of existence. Did Shakespeare in his wildest dreams ever imagine his words would last 450 years, or that they would be performed every single day, not only in England but around the world? Probably not. But here we are.

April is National Poetry Month, and I am celebrating by emailing out my own selection of one poem per day for the duration of the month. If you wish to be unsubscribed from this poem-a-day email list at any time, please reply to this email with a friendly unsubscribe request (preferably in heroic couplet form). You may also request to add a consenting friend to the list, or even nominate a poem.

To learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more official-like poem-a-day list, visit www.poets.org.

Enjoy.
Ellen

Since it’s his birthday…



Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out

Against the wreckful siege of battering days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall time's best jewel from time's chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

O, none, unless this miracle have might,

That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
■


Hello Friends,
The desire to make something beautiful immortal has motivated many a poet, perhaps none more than Shakespeare (who we believe was born on this day in 1564). Before you is a Shakespearean sonnet that "in black ink" has indeed allowed Shakespeare's love to "still shine bright" centuries later.
— Ellen

hey nonny, nonny

Hello Friends,


Since it is the Bard's birthday, we're featuring a little ditty from Much Ado About Nothing. While there is no exact translation for "hey nonny, nonny," one interpretation is that this is Shakespeare's recruitment song for some kind of lesbian separatist utopia.
Enjoy.

Ellen


Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.

          Men were deceivers ever,

One foot in sea, and one on shore,
          To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,

          And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

          Into hey nonny, nonny. 
Sing no more ditties, sing no more
           Of dumps so dull and heavy.

The fraud of men was ever so

          Since summer first was leafy.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

          And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

          Into hey nonny, nonny.
■

Poem-a-Day April 7, 2015: loaded donkey

Hello Friends,

Long Beach poet David Hernandez is a master of repetition in today’s poem-a-day “Mosul” from his 2011 collection Hoodwinked. I couldn’t quite decide today between war and grapes, so for a runner-up see also “Museum Guard” from Hernandez’s 2003 collection A House Waiting for Music.

And for other masterful examples of repetition, see also Marilyn Hacker’s “Rune of the Finland Woman,” Ann Lauterbach’s “Hum,” or William Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Enjoy.
Ellen

Mosul

The donkey. The donkey pulling the cart.
The caravan of dust. The cart made of plywood,
of crossbeam and junkyard tires. The donkey
made of donkey. The long face. The long ears.
The curled lashes. The obsidian eyes blinking
in the dust. The cart rolling, cracking the knuckles
of pebbles. The dust. The blanket over the cart.
The hidden mortar shells. The veins of wires.
The remote device. The red light. The donkey
trotting. The blue sky. The rolling cart. The dust
smudging the blue sky. The silent bell of the sun.
The Humvee. The soldiers. The dust-colored
uniforms. The boy from Montgomery, the boy
from Little Falls. The donkey cart approaching.
The dust. The laughter on their lips. The dust
on their lips. The moment before the moment.
The shockwave. The dust. The dust. The dust.

Poem-a-Day April 23: star-crossed

ROMEO speaks about JULIET:
(Excerpt from the first monologue of Act II, scene II)

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twingle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That bird would sing, and think it were not night.

JULIET speaks about ROMEO:
(Excerpt from the first monologue of Act III, scene II)

Give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in love with night…

Hello Friends—

Here’s an assertion for you: No writer in English will ever be able to use the word “star-crossed” (or “star-cross’d”) without it being a reference to Shakespeare.

Now send in your examples to disprove that assertion. Or: What other writers do you feel can be invoked with just a single word, who uniquely own that particular word, like (in my opinion) Shakespeare alone owns “star-crossed” — not because they invented the word, but because they used the word that unforgettably.

Virginia Woolf mentions Shakespeare’s “word-coining power” in a journal entry:

“I read Shakespeare directly after I have ﬁnished writing, when my mind is agape and red and hot. Then it is astonishing. I never yet knew how amazing his stretch and speed and word-coining power is, until I felt it utterly outpace and outrace my own, seeming to start equal and then I see him draw ahead and do things I could not in my wildest tumult and utmost press of mind imagine.”

And, because I am very jealous of all the folks who went to see Anna Deveare Smith speak on Shakespeare’s Birthday (did I mention April 23 is his birthday yet?) at a free and open to the public event on Stanford’s campus this evening, I’ll leave you with her words on Shakespeare’s influence. What most resonates with me is Anna Deveare Smith’s articulation that the most valuable things we learn from studying Shakespeare are not definitive answers but the ability to question; we learn how to pursue inquiries about our human existence.

Enjoy.
Ellen

Poem-a-Day April 23: fearful bravery

Hello Friends —
So there’s this poet William Shakespeare (you might’ve heard of him — it’s his birthday today) who favored a literary technique called oxymoron for its ability to convey paradoxes in the human condition. “Fearful bravery” is an example of an oxymoron. A paradox it illustrates is that without fear, there is no bravery — for in order to be brave, we must have something worth fearing to be brave in the face of or overcome.
Enjoy.
Ellen

CAESAR:
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.—

Poem-a-Day, April 23: two birds i’ the cage

No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;
And take upon’s the mystery of things,
As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,
In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.

Hello friends —

It takes a tragic situation for a person to be fantasizing about escaping to prison to be able to spend more time with someone — in this case, two birds in a cage are better than one bird in a grave. Of all the tragedies in his life, losing his daughter Cordelia hits King Lear the hardest. As the eloquence Lear demonstrates here deteriorates, “No, no, no, no!” is echoed by “Howl, howl, howl, howl!” and finally the perfect iambic pentameter, “Never, never, never, never, never!”

The Duke of Albany concludes the play by reflecting:

   The weight of this sad time we must obey;
   Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
   The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
   Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

In general, I try not to send you poems by long-dead white dudes two days in a row, but I hope you’ll forgive me this exception for the Bard’s birthday.

I hope you’ve been enjoying National Poetry Month! If you’ve missed any days or would just like to look back, you can review posts here at meetmein811.blogspot.com.

In honor of Talk Like Shakespeare Day, Fare thee well —
Ellen

Poems by William Shakespeare were also featured for Poem-a-Day April 23, 2007; Poem-a-Day April 23, 2008; and Poem-a-Day April 23, 2009.

Poem-a-Day, April 23: Since it’s his birthday…

“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” by William Shakespeare was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 23, 2007.
Poems by William Shakespeare were also featured for Poem-a-Day April 23, 2008 and Poem-a-Day April 23, 2011.

Poem-a-day, April 30: So.

“Out, Out —”

The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them “Supper.” At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap —
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. The boy saw all —
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart —
He saw all spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off —
The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!”
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then — the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little — less — nothing! — and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

***

Hello Friends,

Today’s poem is by Robert Frost, in his collection Mountain Interval (1916). The poem’s title is a reference to one of the greatest monologues ever written, in Shakespeare’s Macbeth (see Poem-a-Day April 23, 2007).

And with that, I am Out. Thirty days. Thirty poets. Thirty poems. Today is the last day of April, and the last poem-a-day for 2008.

If a particular poem or two from this month has really stuck with you, I am so glad! And if you’re feeling inspired to continue reading some poetry beyond the month of April, here are some places to start.

Thank you for humoring me in this celebration of National Poetry Month. You may now return to your affairs.

– Ellen

P.S. If you missed a poem-a-day from earlier, or just want to revisit one, visit meetmein811.blogspot.com or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/poemaday_tgifreytag/.