Shakespeare Music
Shakespeare poetry and plays are deeply memorable, like a song you love and don’t mind hearing again and again. Take this lyrical passage from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, Scene I:
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamelled skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
For this month’s new theme, Shakespeare and Company, we’ve gathered songs we hope you won’t mind hearing again and again, from Natalie Merchant’s “Ophelia” to Duke Ellington’s “Madness in Great Ones (Hamlet).”
As always, there’s company you might not expect; in this case, from Andy Griffith to Plácido Domingo and a few cuts that have nothing whatsoever to do with Shakespeare and his buddies… but just happen to pick up various namesakes in album titles, artist names, or songs. Give a listen. Find something to love (and write by). Then try the poetry prompt below.
Poetry Prompt
Pretend you are a central object or location in one of Shakespeare’s plays, and write a poem from the point of view of the object or location… watching the scene unfolding before you.
For instance, you could choose to be the dagger in Macbeth, the water in Hamlet (where Ophelia is later found), the vault in Romeo and Juliet. What do you see, hear, taste, feel, touch? What colors accompany the scene, what fragrances? How do you feel about the action that’s happening either with or in spite of you?
Featured Heroes & Villains Poem
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here’s a found poem we enjoyed from Rick Maxson:
At Midday
Strange things happened
at midday. The glittering sea rose up,
moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility;
the coral reef
and the few stunted palms
that clung to the more elevated parts
would float up into the sky,
would quiver, be plucked apart,
run like raindrops on a wire
or be repeated
as in an odd succession of mirrors.
Sometimes land loomed
where there was no land
and flicked out
like a bubble as the children watched.
Photo by Daniel Zedda, Creative Commons via Flickr.
Browse more Shakespeare
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Richard Maxson says
What face is this what
voice inside me even now
makes the shadows speak
L.L. Barkat says
Trying to guess. And thinking how a title for this poem would send it in entirely different directions, depending on… the title.
What shadows
speaking, change
my voice, my face.
Sandra Heska King says
What shadows inside me
make me face
the voice that speaks
L. L. Barkat says
Speaking facing voicing,
I make me.
Sandra Heska King says
Facing me
I speak to the shadows
in their voice
Maureen Doallas says
I speak in their voice,
the shadows facing me.
Richard Maxson says
Good suggestions. Here is what I had in mind and didn’t write. The prompt was, “Pretend you are a central object or location in one of Shakespeare’s plays, and write a poem from the point of view of the object or location…”
I thought of this title and decided I would see what reaction the haiku would get given the prompt. Here is the title and haiku:
My Father’s Ghost
What face is this what
voice inside me even now
makes the shadows speak
Richard Maxson says
Thank you all for you reading and comments.
L. L. Barkat says
so… is it the ghost speaking… or Hamlet? 🙂
I love that you let us explore first before revealing the title.
When I read ghosts
I realize how little vocabulary is left
to touch. The meaning of face,
of shoulder, voice. The sound of love
now absent, I turn pages
of white and fog,
never feeling I can come to the end,
never feeling I can find the beginning—
there is no way to turn, to sleep, to dream.
Richard Maxson says
in the realm of ghosts
what remains to touch is where
loving touch has been
Maureen Doallas says
I set as my challenge using the words in the titles in the playlist above, along with a remix of words from Shakespeare’s various songs (see texts at Shakesongs.com).
——-
Not to be thine own
self is not to imagine
a summer’s day—sweet
and true as true love be
to work rough magic
deeper in the heart
where May buds,
all too merrily.
*
Birds a warbling word
by rote do sing, in nature’s
hand this flower spring
never more lovely nor fair
begot in dear Ophelia’s eyes
that gazing fell on Hamlet
until the break of day
when glimmering light
their last dance play.
*
The bride-bed blessed,
the couple Romeo and Juliet
in chamber rest.
*
Of science Shakespeare
is not so keen, profane
his mark but tender be
the certain kiss to smooth
what lips in heavenly music
cry.
Richard Maxson says
I like all of these, Maureen. The first is my favorite.
Sandra Heska King says
I’m partial to the second one… because… birds. 🙂
Maureen Doallas says
So perhaps, Sandra, you could take the birds in Shakepeare, either in the plays or the sonnets?
Maureen Doallas says
Thank you. I appreciate knowing what resonates with each reader.
L. L. Barkat says
A great way to approach it. Love that.
This might be my favorite part:
“Not to be thine own
self is not to imagine
a summer’s day”
Maureen Doallas says
[untitled]
You, mad motherless daughter,
in my muddied depths prayed to
sleep forever, and I, the brook that fed
the willow’s wail, your meanings gathered,
oft-cast from flowers spent: Rosemary,
to remember how you quick-obeyed
your father’s command that doubled loss
you too well knew. Pansies, for thoughts
of him, bloodied and confused, and a daisy
for dissembling, unhappiness bestrewed.
A bough of nectar organs horned, in form
of a king not dead, a cuckold made—
columbines worn in deceit’s own bed.
Fennel favored flattery a poison not refused
and rue, regret, that you in unsweet sorrow
wept and wept, for vengeance took all yet
none returned, and weeds thick-hemmed
in grief your garden grew. Had faithful each
to each other been, you in white, a vision,
might have dressed. But nettles sharp,
even stinging, clung, that by day’s end
more tragic deeds were done. Death won.