Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

 

All things we ordained festival

Turn from their office to black funeral:

Our instruments to melancholy bells;

Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;

Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;

Our bridal flowers serve for a burial corse;

And all things change them to the contrary.

 

-Capulet

 

Romeo and Juliet            Act IV Scene v, Line 87

 

As I was saying, it’s good to spend some time reflecting on well wrought verse: sometimes concentrating on the form, sometimes the content, and sometimes just on where the lines take you in your personal reflections. I find that the latter is almost always where I end up.

        For the gift of the art, whether live, drawn, or written,

Is not how it looks in the book where it’s sittin’,

It’s whether or not it gets up off the page,

Or the screen, or the easel, or down from the stage,

And reaches right up, and jumps into your life,

And affects how you look at your friend, dad, or wife.

That’s a couple of lines that are not Will’s. Believe it or not, I do read stuff besides Shakespeare (but don’t ask my wife; she doesn’t believe that to be true).

See? Not a Shakespeare on the shelf! I am just so diversified!