How many will join the Challenge?



Take a look around and get creative - make a video, audio, dance, or sculpture - anything you like!

Contact Nathan: sonnetchallenge [AT] gmail [DOT] com

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Day 71 - Sonnet #59: beauty, birth, comparison, praise, time, history

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Musical version




If there be nothing new, but that which is,
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which labouring for invention bear amis
The second burthen of a former child!
O that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done.
That I might see what the old world could say,
To this composed wonder of your frame,
Whether we are mended, or where better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O sure I am the wits of former days,
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.


What line (or lines) most resonates with you?

As always - feedback, comments and creativity are welcome!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Day 70 - Sonnet #145: dark lady, hate, love, insecurity, mistress

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a special thank you to Link for his cameo...

for more info on 145 - check out the Wikipedia page




Fun visual example




This isn't strictly by the text, but I LOVE how much energy they put into the interpretation - way to make it clear!



Those lips that Love's own hand did make,
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',
To me that languished for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,
Was used in giving gentle doom:
And taught it thus anew to greet:
'I hate' she altered with an end,
That followed it as gentle day,
Doth follow night who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
'I hate', from hate away she threw,
And saved my life saying 'not you'.

As always - feedback, comments and creativity are welcome!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Day 69 - Sonnet #66: corruption, death, abandon, regret, dishonesty

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Tired with all these for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill.
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that to die, I leave my love alone.

As always - feedback, comments and creativity are welcome!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Day 68 - Sonnet #21: muse, truth, comparison, verses, beauty

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fyi - rondure = roundness, sphericity



So is it not with me as with that muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems:
With April's first-born flowers and all things rare,
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O let me true in love but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair,
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:
Let them say more that like of hearsay well,
I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

As always - feedback, comments and creativity are welcome!