Winners announced here!
Write a short poem that begins with one line from any Shakespeare play or poem. The poem should be two to four lines in length. Post it in the comments section below under your full name and general area of residence (“Bob Smith, Denver, Colorado”). Two entries allowed per poet.
When: Now until June 24, 2019 midnight EST. Winners Announced July 1, 2019.
Who: Anyone in the world, any age or background, may participate. From within the Society, anyone, including Advisory Board Members, not involved in judging the contest may participate. (If you are outside the United States, you will have to have a PayPal account or a bank that accepts U.S. checks to receive the prize money if you win.)
Prize: $100. You will also win this William Shakespeare pen donated by Joe Tessitore of New York City.
Judge: Advisory Board Members and selected poets.
Entry Fee: None
Examples: Our first example and the idea for this contest comes from Mr. Tessitore, who came up with this contest. Thank you, Joe!
In the Toilet
Brevity is the soul of wit,
yet on my brains I choose to sit,
long-winded, (here a pun, methinks!).
Small wonder, then, such humor stinks!
To weep is to make less the depth of grief
Petty tears wasted on a falsehood
Ornamental stars abbreviating
the infinity of an unrelenting black night
HEAR MY SOUL SPEAK :
WITH MY UTMOST DEVOTION FOR YOU TO HEAL,
SOLACE OF TIME WHEN YOU NEED ME.
THEY CAN’T DECEIT UNTIL YOU, ME ARE WE.
HEAR MY SOUL SPEAK :
WITH MY UTMOST DEVOTION FOR YOU TO HEAL,
SOLACE OF TIME WHEN YOU NEED ME,
THEY CAN’T DECEIT UNTIL YOU, ME ARE WE.
DEVATRAI JHA
In black ink my love may still shine bright
For though feelings pour out of the vial of words
In my inkpot, my quill stirrs the beauty of night
As the moon’s crescendo sings of thy ethereal face
DEVATRAI JHA
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
All speak of the same crime:
If thou hath not lived the moment
Thou shall wilt like a rose under societal paradigm
Martin Hill Ortiz, Ponce, PR
The Quintessence of Dust and Pepperoni
O! That this too solid flesh would melt!
So that I, again, might fit this belt.
Nay, I yearn to yield to pizzas hot:
I will happy be and healthy, not.
Martin Hill Ortiz, Ponce, PR
All That Glitters Is Not Gold’s Gym
To take arms against a sea of troubles,
Free from here, I’ll brave a bracing swim.
Sigh! With weary grunts, my sweating doubles:
I am trapped inside a stench-filled gym.
My love as deep; the more I give thee
Precious as the light; as pure as thou love can be
The sun, the moon, the heaven; all can see
That you are a god’s gift sent only to me
As I do live by food, I met a fool–
who never did learn anything in school,
but still pretends to rule the world entire,
the bloviating, greedy, fat, old liar!
(First line from As You Like It.)
Rick Blum, Bedford, MA
Advice for a Chaste Critic
Get thee to a nunnery
Seek shelter from the swarm
Of my incessant punnery
You dub a blunderstorm
The Pallor of Money
To thine own self be true
When others scoff at you
Just flaunt your orange hue
And blond hair gone askew
One’s Own
“Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief”
To Jack Jones I answer not, but just may well be
Drenched impressions of this name, in the ocean I am left and recurringly remain
Submerged in what I now call comforts betrayal, cradled in its embrace, it has kept me
Instead of mounting barbed steed
As frightful adversaries bleed
He capers nimbly to display
The pleasing nature of his way.
The undiscovered country calls
From tiny nooks and open halls
To souls that for a solace yearn
To dwell in peace, not to return.
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
This is the case for all we hold most dear
In war, in work, and ev’ry endeavour
It must be said, the leaner the better
Macbeth: Act IV, Scene I
“The witches”
“Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,”
and biting snubs from blinded grubs
The honey on their tongues belie
the frying frogs that flee the pyre.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
No Benedict am I, nor a Mumford,
And not a Shakespeare either, though I try
To use my wit while remaining most kind
Ruth Lintiso, Maryland
Fair Is Foul
Fair is foul and foul is fair
Look at this world’s paradoxical affair
Chooses light but sleeps with despair
Wise
All that glisters is not gold
Discern and be wise, know what is not told
Open up your eyes and see this life
Choose the truth, be not ignorant of the lies
Love is a Smoke (from Romeo and Juliet)
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
But love alone can’t make your spirits rise.
Only faith in Existence brings to you
The peace you must have to pull yourself through.
David Paul Behrens
La Verne, California
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.(Sonnet 116)
Where blind eyes speaks of the truth behind,
scathing in the despair of love.
1.
I am that merry wanderer of the night,
The most conducive time for making love,
When poets’ fancy takes unbridled flight,
And Cupid’s dart wounds lovely moon above.
2.
My parts had power to charm a sacred nun;
The fire of youth she had suppressed for long,
Till she her coyness did decide to shun,
John Donne had proved her notion to be wrong.
Sarban Bhattacharya, India
Sarban, I have no idea who you are, or might be, but I found your contributions here to be very evocative. Congrats.
Title of the first poem: A Merry Wanderer .(The first line is from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’)
Title of the second poem: Spiritual Love. (The first line is from ‘A Lover’s Complaint’)
Thank you C.B. Anderson for appreciating me.
Summertime
from Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day
That’s ninety-eight-point-six degrees and humid?
I wouldn’t want you any other way,
Especially when I’m hot to trot and tumid.
Stalwart
from As You Like It
All the world’s a stage
Where players play their parts;
Stand, and act your age,
Denouncing timid hearts.
C.B., this reminds me of the last verse in a poem I wrote in 1972.
Shakespeare said the world’s a stage
And we are all just players.
Some of us don’t like the wage
And so are just spectators.
Confutation
from Cymbeline
If she be furnish’d with a mind so rare
As to bring silence to my own true voice,
Then she has commandeered the very air,
and yielding thereto is the only choice.
The Spirit of the Matter
from Hamlet
The head is not more native to the heart
Than crazy hearts are good at cogent thinking,
And neither is a poet’s crafted art
Immune from episodes of heavy drinking.
Ha! Excellent!
Summer Becomes Her
Shall I compare thee to a summers day?
A gust of warm wind is thine ire
And as it bloweth, the sun doth shine
Thy gaze like rays of fire
The Almighty Herself
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more
You cry has last reached heaven’s door
The Almighty Herself has shone her light
On you. ‘Tis the end of female plight.
Bahrain/India
Just for the sheer sophistication of the word-play . . I hereby declare Martin Rizley’s ‘2b or not 2b’ to be the winner of this competition (at least in my psyche).