I found this somewhere online and thought it would be a great idea for a Korrektiv Poetry Contest. We haven’t had one of those in a while, so why not? Winners (1st, 2nd, 3rd and two Honorable Mentions) will be announced on Shakespeare Day 2017 (April 23). Each will receive – well, something Shakespearey, I suppose.
Rules:
- Each participant may submit up to three (3) sonnets each.
- Each submission must be a Shakespearean sonnet (Shakespearean in form and in style: archaic Elizabethan language and all (see Gaynor example above)—the more clever the better chance the submission has of winning).
- Each submission must retain the title and composer of the original pop song (again, see above).
- Each submission must be a reworking of a recognizable pop love song (not something your sister’s best friend wrote and composed on a kazoo)—with a theme of either love desired (e.g. “I Want Your Sex”), love gained (e.g. “You Light Up My Life”), or, like Ms. Gaynor’s immortal work, love lost.
- All poems must appear in the comment box for this post for consideration.
- Winners will be notified in advance of the official announcement here at the Korrektiv.
- And, yes, the contest is decidedly open to all members of the Korrektiv Kollektiv.
- DEADLINE: April 1, 2017
Any questions?
Then get scribbling!
I ran across this line from a recent interview with Spanish novelist Juan Manuel de Prada:
“De los grandes escritores, como del marrano, se aprovecha todo”.
”From great writers, like from a pig, everything gets used.”
Thought you might appreciate the agrarian reference, and its call to an earthy appreciation of literary tradition.
Maybe someone could pen a poem about that…
From cheesy meat hewn from the head
To cheek and ear named for sweet bread
To bacon’s strip of fatty belly
And bones to make the aspic’s jelly
So we must seize these poppy themes
And bend them to the sonnet’s schemes
To find the secret pool of tears
Within the songs of Britney Spears
Aspic’s jelly! Who knew?
Heh.
JOB
No surgeon can carve out the pit of pain
that lodges deep within my wretched breast,
nor poultice to unheat the burning brain
relieve the fever by which I’m oppress’t.
The pothecary offers not a pill,
nor is there balm in all of Araby
to lessen e’en a whit this grievous ill
and bring my humours into harmony.
No royal touch can purge the loathsome taint;
all Galen’s books as well be writ in Greek;
in stony dumbness stands each graven saint;
yet Doctor orders me thyself to seek:
My sickness was thy going hence from me,
my medicine be nothing else but thee.
Carol Douglas, ‘Doctor’s Orders’
Could I let others know about this? You know, gasp, free advertizing?
YES! Please do!
JOB
Within the night’s expiring hour we lie,
Together, still yet sundered as by miles –
Unwitting, was it word or deed that I
Unfolded too ungently, joy defiled?
Tis true, they say: that every blooming rose
Doth hide beneath its blush the piercing thorn –
That every swain who guards the ambling cows
Singeth sorrow to the beckoning morn.
I feed my love upon thy favorite song –
The minstrel says that love is but a game
An easy guest, who bids farewell ere long –
And wonder, hath he entertained such pain?
And in my heart I know: thou’d not have fled
If this in time might I to thee have said.
Poison, “Every Rose Has its Thorn”
Brava!
Keep ‘em coming!
JOB
This sin I do to you in shame confess
That made thee sure this more than friendship be
And knowing not thy poor heart’s sweet distress
Did’st yet again make light of constancy
If now I can beweep thy outcast state
Mine own love’s strength thus to subside
No prayerful petition could abate
The wilting of what hidden in me lied
You played with me, thus I with thee dids’t play
And from thy catechizing looks I learn’d
By rote the bookish glances that today
Your gull’d heart thinks it has by spending earn’d
Forgive me for bending thy thoughts in pain
O cold conclusion! I did it again
Britney Spears, “Oops!… I Did It Again”
Alas, no satisfaction cans’t I receive
Though the attempt repeatedly I make
Whilst rambling in horseless carriage, without reprieve
Some gentleman drones counsel I shan’t take
Say I, I cannot find contentedness
Though heartily do I endeavor more
The flashing box promotes dementedness
Of a launderer whose tobacco I abhor
Again, bereft, unsatisfied, I cry
Whilst I bemoan the maid with eyes so fair
Who to answer my entreaty doth deny
Even a fleeting glance with me to share
Cheerfulness eludeth me ever
In delight I shall indulge myself never
-The Rolling Stones
I Can’t Get No Satisfaction
Thou say’st love’s a river to drown a tender reed
That love is just a razor to slice thy soul to core
Thou point’st to love’s hunger, its endless aching need
Yet I know love is a flower, and thou its only spore.
Thou heart afraid of breaking will never learn to dance
Thou hand that won’t be taken will never reach to give
Thou dream afraid of waking will never take a chance
Thou soul afraid of dying will never learn to live.
When nights become too lonely, thou roads become too long
And days bestow a single, trailing shadow on the knoll
Thou think’st love be only for the blessed and the strong
And hang’st thy head in sorrow wrenched by emptiness of soul
But hidden in the winter, far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed that with the sun’s love, in spring becomes the rose
-The Rose, Bette Midler
Oceans cans’t not keep us apart
Not death and neither its silence
Time dost not confine our hearts
Or crush our sweet alliance
In dreams this night thou comes so near
To show this heart the way
And beat the song we both shall hear
Forever and a day
Beneath my breast thy song is held
And heard with sight and touch
Thy distance with my present melds
Have lovers ever loved so much?
Nay, near or far wherever thou art
Our hearts will go on and never part.
–The Heart Goes On, Celine Dion (The Titanic Theme)
First once, then twice, then thrice—my mistress shall not
Be found to spend her time in dalliance, when, lo!
Most certain her love, yet with uncertainty fraught
Is her desire—alas, she faints when I go!
My mistress, surrender, and thus, enliven me
As thy parents and mine did. Call not their ways strange!
Hail, thee! Hail, thee! Hail, thee! Hail, thee! Hail, thee!
This vastness between us you must disarrange.
Lo, how the world fades, and love is no diff’rent.
Our hearts we must quiet, true stoics become.
I hunger not for either dance or thy parents.
My speech here is forthright. Let us join as one.
Ice cold art thou, mistress. Grow bold in delight!
And shak’st thy body as one an instant woodcut might.
–“Hey Ya!” Outkast
You, Karen, and I should compose a book of sonnets! 🙂
At dawn when I arise the sun to greet
With forbidding dread its sovereign eye,
And tread my course with ever-failing feet,
My heavy soul doth seem content to die.
I hie me to the glass to there confer
With mine own visage, who cries out perforce
To heaven, and, as weeping boughs of myrrh,
The bitt’rest tears his pleas to thus endorse.
O, Lord, thou knowest well I have kept faith
With thee, this long and empty run of years,
Though weary time hast made of me a wraith,
Love’s ledger sadly fallen in arrears.
And so, I crave a boon from Thee above,
Canst Thou not find me somebody to love?
–Freddie Mercury, “Somebody To Love”
Always have loved that song. And your sonnet is perfect!!!
Should I conceal myself ‘neath bluebird wing
As she gives song, and should the bird of dawn
Forsake his office – what a glorious thing!
Alas, he calls. I rise, I blink, I yawn.
I hie myself unto the lavat’ry
To shave. The razor, like ingratitude,
Is cold, and like a sometime friend gone by,
It stings; yet gladsome is my attitude.
Thou thought me once a brave and horsed knight
In habit white, but since discover’d me
A man, no more; an ordinary wight
Who spends not money, but good times with thee.
O be ye blithe and merry, sleepy Jean!
Believe thy daydreams, my homecoming queen!
The Monkees, “Daydream Believer”
(written by John Stewart)
Alas! My heart, how heavy ’tis with woe!
She put me down; I find myself forlorn.
’Til late at night, out on the town I go,
A-bed remaining well into the morn.
But Rhonda – oh, how fair you are to see!
But little time were needed, so I trow;
Were you to come and keep me company,
Methinks I should forget her even now.
She plighted me her troth, to be my wife,
But then she met another she lov’d more.
I saw your count’nance, Rhonda; share my life!
Oh, help me, Rhonda; that I do implore.
Your help, O Rhonda, I bid you, impart!
I conjure you, extract her from my heart.
The Beach Boys, “Help Me, Rhonda”
(written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love)
O Lady, smiles abound when thou art near!
To me donate thy bount of love, my lief.
With your sweet hands build me when wreck I fear.
As priests give shrift, your touch all woe can shrief.
O Lady, from thy dawn upon my eye
You rendered surfeit me dulcet passión
Like single star newborn within the sky
So shy, like naked newborn babe now grown.
Should I ever suffer destitution
Reveal to me the witchcraft in your lips.
Beside me lie each evening and in restitution
Love will take love in gentle soothing sips.
Thou art my lady of the morning moiety
Sparkling, clear, and loving, you’re my lady.
“Lady” by Dennis DeYoung
Recall when I emancipated thee
Thy trust in me thou could’st enumerate
I vowed that day to ever faithful be,
If thou should wist, in somewise be there straight.
Nor wind nor rain nor winters bitter cold
Mayst stop me if you feel yourself travailed
Thou art my destination and my goal
E’en if I’m cabined, cribbed, confined, assailed.
My love lives in the chapter of my bosom
Though miles might keep us both so far apart
If e’er thou need’st a hand to help thy dorsum
To answer in the method of the heart…
No mountain’s high enough, no valle so low
No rill so wide enough to keep me from you.
– “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye
****Contest Now Closed!********
Thanks so much, everyone for your contributions!
I’ll be posting winners on April 23!
Best,
JOB
A Father’s Entry
Lord, you have searched me and you know me,
And that inner part you illuminated
Now hangs off the front, like a gut.
“Sure, you can press the button.”
The sun rises, and I, by a long, slow, spiritual dialysis,
Am coming to you, Lord. After all,
There is some progress under this earthly veil.
“Yes, you can get a Christmas book.”
While I take out the trash, under the full moon,
I marvel at how fast it all goes. Through the
Barrage of joy and love, in you and by you,
I hope to be your true friend before the end.
“Pick up your toys and come to the table.”
Thank you, Lord. Thank you.
And with the exception of that ugly sub-plot,
It is all you, Lord, through and through.
Ego consecro me ad vos.
“Yes, I am done. Let me read you that book.”