It’s still April — and it’s still National Poetry Month in the United States. The American Academy of Poets has developed a list of 30 ways to celebrate. One of the suggestions is to memorize a poem. Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare is a perfect candidate — because it’s “short…with a strong rhythmic underpinning” as the National Poetry Month site suggests.
SONNET 18
by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
NOTE: “Sonnet 18” and other summer-related poetry and prose from over 70 authors appears in the Silver Birch Press Summer Anthology, available at Amazon.com.
IMAGE: 2014 National Poetry Month poster by Chip Kidd.
Silver Birch Press 