I love sonnets. And Shakespeare. And music.
When I was in college, I heard and fell in love with the music of Ralph Covert and the Bad Examples. Many of the songs come back to me time and time again, and one in particular comes to mind when I feel myself getting frustrated with a scene or character while writing:
“Every poet wants to murder Shakespeare
We’re just pissing on the grave of what went on before
And everyone invents the world the day that they were born”~Ralph Covert, “Every Poet Wants to Murder Shakespeare”
So speaking of Shakespeare; and sonnets; and music…
When Stephen and I were at BookExpo promoting Geek Parenting, we picked up the book Pop Sonnets by Erik Didriksen. While he may not murder Shakespeare, Erik gives Shakespeare a run for his money. 🙂
We had so much fun taking turns reading the sonnets and trying to guess the original pop song. It’s such a fun and clever book. Here’s a sample:
(You can read a few more on the @popsonnet tumblr page.)
And here are the Bad Examples for your listening pleasure:
If you’d like to hear the Bad Examples on vinyl, check out their Bad Is Beautiful deluxe vinyl release.
And to conclude, fourteen lines of iambic pentameter by the Bard himself:
Sonnet 30
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.—William Shakespeare
