This episode we share the first of Shakespeare’s Sonnets to the Dark Lady, Sonnet 127, alongside a brief contextual reading of the piece.
This episode was inspired by Patrick Stewart’s A Sonnet a Day initiative, which has been a source of much delight in recent months, but overlooked this one piece during a break.
I’m publishing (on average) a short piece per day on Twitter, including a mix of poetry and prose, so I’m posting a “highlights reel” here, and the rest can be found on my profile, @PeterRavlich.
If you enjoy ultra short form work, there are hundreds of other poets and writers creating moments of delight, tension, wonder and bravery, most consistently using the hashtag #vss365.
Prompt: Swoon (vss365)
You are so far beyond me in every single dimension— I can’t even
Prompt: Flutter (Poetryin13)
That sweet lub-dub was so sufficient— but feeling this flutter is bittersweet bliss
Prompt: Integer (vss365)
In your influence I feel infinite and yet constrained Ordered only to your orbit where I’m dying to remain Count my singular resolve and salve this pain
Prompt: Concern (painfulprompts)
There are only four chambers inside this heart but I can’t seem to find my way out
Prompt: Triangle (vss365)
The first is a fragile instant— A heart is surrendered and won The second a cognitive frisson A deft dalliance is begun The third is the angle unchallenged Who toys with the others in turn He’ll posture and pout as misdeeds echo out But never be ready to learn
Prompt: Commute (vss365)
Everything you are to me an absolute anomaly in isolation can’t exist (the pun misplaced but accurate)— This is a sum that can’t be split the product is inviolate no cognitive coherence how you’ve come to populate my now
But I’m glad
Prompt: Complex (vss365)
You say you’re simple— so simple
maybe it’s the word that’s insufficient
maybe it’s me
because simple
has never meant so much
Prompt: Field (vss365)
A heart is not a book but a library Where the authors each submit a single tome Whose pages leave us shook and sad, and teary But where sometimes we still sit to dream of home
Prompt: Vector (vss365)
Turn my key until it binds and point me down a stumbled line I’ll be your rusting soldier til the end And when that final spring unwinds my clockwork heart, my whole design will be no single fraction colder— For I’ve had you as a friend
Prompt: Calculus (vss365)
You nudge me unexpectedly and sometimes off the edge— how is one to ascertain these rates of change?
If I were in any way a smart predictor I would hedge— It is not at all unpleasant but it’s strange.
Prompt: iff (vss365)
I just can’t see a case that tests for true
When something ill-defined and ephemeral is lost what do you weigh?
I know it’s my fault But not how when I can’t be false again
Prompt: Vector (vss365)
I have value I know and volition – a vector so why does my verse tend to zero on you?
Prompt: Enhance (vss365)
If wishes worked— even once You’d be unafraid still perfect but content too
You’re listening to this pod, so you’re likely familiar with Patrick Stewart‘s recent “a sonnet a day” initiative, where he’s working his way through performing all 154 of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
For the last week, I’ve been summarising each of those daily poems for my wife, who is incredibly patient with me, but less so with Shakespearean language and idiom.
Unfortunately, Sir Patrick is currently up to Sonnet 95, and this part of the sequence, while containing some beautiful works, is also deeply paranoid and potentially anxiety-inducing.
So with far too much context there, I’d like to share a few of the more uplifting and just generally lovely sonnets from Shakespeare’s sequence, along with what I’ve been calling the Lisa Versions.
I’m certain I’ve shared Sonnet 18 before, and it’s the best known of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but I’d like to start with it and 17.
The early part of Shakespeare’s sequence is an appeal for the speaker’s beloved “young man” to procreate and in doing so immortalise his beauty.
In a precedent that will continue through the sequence, the speaker then attempts to find an alternate solution: what if the young man does not have children? How can his beauty be immortalised?
Sonnet 17 is an attempt to impose a dual solution, and might be seen as a bridge from “go forth and multiply” to “I’m an amazing writer, I can just preserve you here -” but ideally, let’s do both and build in some redundancy.
Sonnet 18, as the most famous of the sonnets today, is both signifier and signified: it is the single enduring image of Shakespeare’s young man sequence, which is precisely what it posits.
Sonnet 17
Sonnet 18
And I can’t stop there, because 19 is also an amazing piece.
To recap, we’ve gone from “have children to keep your beauty in this world,” to “well, my poems can help too,” to perhaps a sudden realisation that genetics aren’t always predictable, so let’s double down on the poetry.
In 19, we again go a step further: now that 18 has established a permanent “save point” for the beloved, the speaker gets cocky and decides to taunt Time, placing the beloved explicitly beyond its reach.
Sonnet 19
I’ll conclude this episode with Sonnet 29, in which the speaker attempts to describe the disparity between the value of being loved and of all worldly aspirations. It celebrates the power of love to grant transcendence, and to fundamentally and utterly reframe the world for the better. Sonnet 25 follows a similar theme, but is more militaristic, and while the tone is darker, I find this one more heartfelt.
I’m publishing an average of around one short piece per day on Twitter, including a mix of poetry and prose, so I’m posting a “highlights reel” here, and the rest can be found on my profile, @PeterRavlich.
If you enjoy ultra short form work, there are hundreds of other poets and writers creating moments of delight, tension, wonder and bravery, most consistently using the hashtag #vss365.
Prompt: Ocean (#vss365)
Yours is the shore and the shallows yours are the deeps and the docks You are the ocean whose bellicose bellows give beat to this heart as it clings to the rocks
Prompt: Nectar (#vss365)
Your nectar is far too sweet— I can’t stop sipping the heart is blameless here but it still hurts to feel it slipping
#Hamilton #AngelicaSchuyler #TakeABreak
Prompt: Nostalgic (#vss365)
The volumes on my mental shelves are battered Like every book I’ve ever loved too much But those pages are pristine that really matter— Every visit restored with a delicate touch
Prompt: Estrange (#Poetryin13)
Is there an inverse corollary or tacit apology— rearrange estrange and this remains
Prompt: Charisma (#vss365)
I know it’s problematic to conflate sincerity with reality— to make a character emblematic when the stage and the page are more suited to static impressions than actual accuracy…
But as for charisma it’s clear there’s no deficit here— Miranda’s Hamilton is revelatory owning his story and an absolute revolution to see.
Prompt: Xenophobe (#vss365)
Losing fear is liberation; Holding it habitual
But when that fear is fabricated facile, false and fanciful
An arbitrary othering of any trait you don’t digest
You’ll find my sympathy is slipping— please don’t put it to the test.
Prompt: Orphan (#vss365)
I sometimes wished No, often while the belt was coming down in the latest punctuation of my faults
That some other explanation for my being was at hand; that could justify escape from these assaults
Prompt: Pachyderm (#vss365)
How ponderous our parries when that trunk gets in the way— yet how deftly we deny our own détentes
Prompt: Liberty (#vss365)
The figure of Liberty beckons with a valiant verdigris mien While behind this inviting impression Is an irony cast for a queen
Prompt: Demogorgon (#vss365)
Your petals seem peculiar and your botany— bizarre While I hate to hasten rumour I can’t fathom what you are Open wider let me see— those look remarkably like teeth just a second maybe three to get my head in underneath…
Prompt: Angel (#vss365)
You used to call me angel but I thought my wings were gone— that time had marred the feathers that I’d fallen…
I was wrong
I was silly and afraid but those do not reflect on you and if I soar again it’s only ‘cos you were my angel too