me, myself, I.

Happy Thursday to all you dVerse bards from Kim of Writing in North Norfolk, and welcome to the tavern! I am your serving wench for today, with ale, sack wine, malmsey and mead.

I have a wonderful little book by Erik Didriksen called Pop Sonnets, in which some well-known pop songs have been re-written in the style of William Shakespeare. As the sonnets in the book are copyrighted, I have provided a link to Tumblr, where new pop sonnets are posted every Thursday: https://popsonnet.tumblr.com/

The book itself is a work of art, printed in an old-fashioned font, Shakespearean style, with a front page stating ‘Never before imprinted’. It is divided into five sections:

• Sonnets of Love include Van Morrison’s ‘Brown Eyed Girl’, The Cure’s ‘Friday I’m in Love’ and Weezer’s ’Buddy Holly’;
• Sonnets of Despair include Britney Spears’ ‘Oops! I Did It Again’, Green Day’s ‘Basket Case’ and Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’;
• Sonnets of Time and Mortality include ‘Talking Heads’ ‘Once in a Lifetime’, Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Beliievin’’ and Don Henley’s ‘The Boys of Summer’;
• Rogues, Rascals and Wanton Women include the Beastie Boys’ ‘(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)’, Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’ and Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed a Girl’;
• Ballads of Heroes include Arlo Guthrie’s ‘Alice’s Restaurant’, Black Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’ and Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’.

There are so many songs, I can’t list them all.

The challenge is to choose a modern popular song, preferably one that everyone knows, and re-write it as a Shakespearean sonnet, which can be serious, humorous or just plain silly! To make it more fun, don’t give your sonnet its original title so that we can take a guess as to what it might be!

This form has already been covered in previous dVerse prompts and the one with the most comprehensive explanation is a Form for All by Gay Reiser Cannon from September 2012, for which I have provided a link: https://dversepoets.com/2012/09/13/formforall-basic-sonnet-forms/

If you are new, here’s how to join in:

• Write a sonnet in response to the challenge;
• Enter a link directly to your poem and your name by clicking Mr Linky below;
• There you will find links to other poets, and more will join so check back to see more poems;
• Read and comment on other poets’ work, we all come here to have our poems read;
• Please link back to dVerse from your site/blog;
• Comment and participate in our discussion below, if you like.   We are a friendly bunch of poets.
• Have fun.

from where cometh this flutter of feather

to oft time and mark thy approach nearby

to draw thou as would i us together

why falleth sparks from the heavenly sky

as oft time thou comest hither by here

twas on thy named day seraph forgathered

and fashioned a vision worthy of seer

sprinkled dust of moon locks thereby lathered

all silver’d o’er  to spark eye of cobalt

maidens doth follow thee all about here

dismally not one  is deemed worth thy salt

so alone must you go from year to year

and so Narcissus reflecting you go

beware o’ the whisper  broken echo