There is a reason for me putting forward that particular work, TEOTA, for consideration by the judges. More than one, in fact....
I think its probably the best thing I have ever written but it was also necessary for me to enter it since, if I won a place then I knew that the work would be printed. It was important for me to express my love in black ink ......
For those of you not so obsessed with the work of The Bard, and its easy to understand why people get turned off him not so much by how its taught as by the works used, there are works you never seem to get exposed to at school who's abject beauty is apparent to anyone with 30 seconds to spare to read one. I speak, of course, of the Sonnets.
In particular I was referring to my personal favourite .....
It is my belief that beauty of this sort must be shared or the world becomes a poorer place. Please, therefore, even if you hated Shakespeare with a passion: I beg you, please, read what he wrote when impassioned by love.
SONNET 65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
A Funny Old Life
