And now for our (optional) prompt. Our video resource for the day promises to teach you everything you need to know to write a Shakespearean sonnet, but I’m not going to ask you to do that, exactly. Instead, I’d like to challenge you to “remix” a Shakespearean sonnet. Here’s all of Shakespeare’s sonnets. You can pick a line you like and use it as the genesis for a new poem. Or make a “word bank” out of a sonnet, and try to build a new poem using the same words (or mostly the same words) as are in the poem. Or you could try to write a new poem that expresses the same idea as one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, like “hey baby, this poem will make you immortal” (Sonnet XVIII) or “I’m really bad at saying I love you but maybe if I look at you adoringly, you’ll understand what I mean” (Sonnet XXIII). If you’re feeling both silly and ambitious, you might try writing an anagram-sonnet, like K. Silem Mohammad has done here.

I have written my poem based on the first line of Sonnet 73 – That time of year thou mayst in me behold. 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

As a full-bodied bottle of ageing wine

At ease in its’ wineskin bag; undisturbed by hot or cold

Wouldn’t need a sommelier’s eye to declare it ‘Fine’

In me you see depth and balance and finish;

Not found in the dawn of my  life

But in the wake of  the noon sun; when I began to cherish

 All that I had, I was and I am; ending the internal strife

In my eyes you see the sparkle of experience 

And a clarity in my thoughts, that holds your interest

No anger of youth, no fear, no diffidence;

But a profound knowledge of time and where to invest

You see in me that time of day when night, a dimly glowing star

My Achilles’ heel- these aching feet, a reminder that dusk, is not  far.

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