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World Poetry Day: A Sonnet Dedicated to Shakespeare


Just found out that this is World Poetry Day! Yay! What could be cooler than that? Had I known earlier, I could have organised a Shakespeare event or something. Alas, I read it just now on twittter and had a quick check on Google.

The other day, I read a rather enlightening book by Paul Edmonson and Stanley Wells entitled Shakespeare Bites Back (you can get it HERE for free). The book addresses an issue I never seriously think about before but now I think very important. Some people think - and I do believe they have their reason - that Shakespeare was not easily the person Shakespeare, if you know what I mean. Well, I believe that Shakespeare is Shakespeare, that amazing William Shakespeare who had great understanding of people's hearts and desires. I hold nothing against anyone who says otherwise, but I have always believed that Shakespeare is the rightful playwright and author of works attributed to him, and I still haven't found a reason to think otherwise.

Too much of this.

Here's a sonnet I wrote after I finished that book. It's not my custom to publish my poem on my blog under my real name, but this is poetry day, so I make an exception.

Praise not thy Muse, greater than them thou art
The best carpenter of the craft they boast
Not Orpheus, nor e'en Phoebus impart
Half the measure of thy gracious ghost
And if one wonders whether thou hast mind
To coin all, or says thou lacked the wit
Or with their most slanderous tongue unkind
Give all thy praise to another more fit
Be rest assured, that all thy progeny
Though silent be, could forceful reply make
Thy loud subjects in greater liberty
Raging the storm and battle for thy sake
So sleep'st in peace, and wak'st in lover's breast
Thou my beloved, my one and very best

Please forgive my poor lines. My brain didn't know what it was doing when I wrote them, or rather, type them on my laptop. I finished this in less than 10 minutes. That gives you the idea how impulsive it was.
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