Countdown to Shakespeare's Birthday

In previous posts, I have spoken about my “relationship” with William Shakespeare. I have been teaching his plays and poetry for over forty years in the classroom. I have watched his plays performed live as well as on the big and little screen. One of the most memorable Shakespeare experiences I have had was watching an outdoor performance of Comedy of Errors at Magdalen College at Oxford University in the summer of 2005. I have been writing Shakespearean sonnets for the last ten years, and have enjoyed the writing experience it has provided me with.

On April 22nd, it will be Shakespeare’s 446th birthday. (I am using the 22nd as it is the only provable date as we do not have the exact date of Shakespeare’s birth; but, when his daughter was married on April 22nd, she said that she chose the date to commemorate her father’s birth.)

For the last five years, I have been sending emails to the high school staff from the first day of April with information on Shakespeare’s life and accomplishments to celebrate his birth. Over these last five years, I have been working with the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC to provide in-services to our English teachers to improve the quality of education of Shakespearean literature in our school. (I am providing the link to their website as the Library is the largest repository of Shakespearean materials in the world and is both educational and informative: http://www.folger.edu/) Last year, we were the first inner-city school in New Jersey to participate in the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival (“Shakespearience”).

I have tried to research Shakespeare’s life and his works to provide interesting and educational information to the staff of my school so that my meager efforts will ensure that Shakespeare’s works will be appreciated for a long time to come.

Over the next few weeks, I will be posting some of this Shakespeare information for the edification of the readers of my blog as well. It is my research as well as my composition; so, in a way, it qualifies as my writing.

So today, to begin this celebration, I am including the first Shakespearean sonnet I wrote. The topic of this poem is in keeping with other pieces I have written about my impending retirement. It seems that even ten years ago when I wrote it, I knew that “when one door closes, another opens.”

Sonnet 1
Christopher Bogart

Have I succumbed to death within my life?
Have I surrendered oxygen to dust?
Have I bared my emotions with a knife,
Cutting out the pulp, and leaving crust?
Has mediocrity become my battle cry?
When I face the forces of my life arrayed
Before me in a line, do I just sigh,
Dismissing them until another day?
When did I begin to feel a cold
Creeping o’er me slowly like a shroud?
When did I begin to feel old
Yet cease to rail against it, voiced out loud?
I will not gather dust on some cold shelf,
But find bold courage to reinvent myself.