Tweetspeak Poetry

Shakespeare & Company: Playlist and Prompt

By 18 Comments

Shakespeare Playlist Ophelia Stream

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
Browse literary analysis
Browse more writing playlists
Browse Titania and Oberon Poem Series

T.S. Poetry
Latest posts by T.S. Poetry (see all)

Try Every Day Poems...

Comments

  2. 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.

    Reply

  3. 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.

    Reply

Trackbacks

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *