Oh yeah baby, I am reading Shakespeare's Sonnet #21 in public, in Central Park next Friday, April 25. I signed up for the
4th Annual Shakespeare's Birthday Sonnet Slam some days ago, but was on the waiting list because all the sonnets were spoken for - but then somebody dropped out. So I got
this bad boy:
So is it not with me as with that Muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O let me, true in love but truly write,
And then believe me: my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:
Let them say more that like of hearsay well;
I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
I like it! I'm not saying I would refuse to trade it for
Sonnet 147 (the subject of
my monologue) or
Sonnet 151 (the inspiration for
my first sonnet) but still, it's one of the better Sonnets - at least it isn't one of those where he's telling the
Fair Youth to go make babies, cause that got pretty old after awhile.
