So often when we think of poetry
Shakespeare’s classic format comes to mind
the sonnet with its song-like quality
a structured poem with rhythm and with rhyme:
‘...if all the world’s a stage on which we play
each one of us an actor in their part,
then who do we become at end of day
when mask dissolves, persona disembarks...'
Yet every writer comes to understand
not every bit of writing’s meant to be
in format with each chosen rhyme well-planned
written in iamb so rigidly
And here, dear William, lies the tragedy:
that modern poet chooses to write ‘free.’
© Ginny Brannan 2018
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This is not one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but one of my favorite excerpts of writing by him, as it speaks to the Seven Ages of Man, a theme I often write about. We are all “playing our parts” somewhere in the middle between birth and death…
From As You Like It,spoken by Jaques:
"All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
*Quote in italics is my writing, an example of Iambic meter, inspired by, but not attributed to Shakespeare!
