National Poetry Month 2020 Day 10: “Sonnet 116” & “Curls”

Finally some Shakespeare! I have always enjoyed his plays and poetry, and really dove into
his poetic works in 2015 as they were an integral part of my MFA in Dance thesis at the University
of Hawai’i. My cast and I danced a variety of sonnets, as well as improvised and spoken-word
poetry (more on that later). It was such a unique creative experience as well as an opportunity to
commit some poetry to memory! We had nicknames for all of the sonnets we were working with
(somehow the numbers are not so evocative), and this one we called “Impediments:”

Sonnet 116 

By William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 

admit impediments. Love is not love 

Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove: 

O no; it is an ever-fixed mark, 

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; 

It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
Within his bending sickle's compass come; 
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.  

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

And here’s a short little love-ditty of my own from around 2000:

Curls

by Blythe Stephens

Tucking those renegade curls

behind your ears

gingerly,

only to watch them slip out again.

Happy occupation.