Today’s host at http://www.ethicalela.com’s Day 2 of the September Open Write is Allison Berryhill of Iowa. She teaches high school journalism and is a frequent host of amazing prompts in our writing group. Come read more about Allison and her full prompt here, as she inspires us to write a retelling poem.
I chose to rewrite my favorite childhood poem, Overheard on a Salt Marsh by Harold Monro, as a Shakespearean Sonnet, a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter, where the rhyme scheme is ababcdcdefefgg, with ten syllables per line. Here is the original poem:
Overheard on a Saltmarsh
Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?
Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?
Give them me.
No.
Give them me. Give them me.
No.
Then I will howl all night in the reeds,
Lie in the mud and howl for them.
Goblin, why do you love them so?
They are better than stars or water,
Better than voices of winds that sing,
Better than any man’s fair daughter,
Your green glass beads on a silver ring.
Hush, I stole them out of the moon.
Give me your beads, I want them.
No.
I will howl in the deep lagoon
For your green glass beads, I love them so.
Give them me. Give them.
No.
– Harold Monro (1879 – 1932)
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Here is my Shakespearean Sonnet:
Nymphs Don’t Play
a goblin glumphed upon a marsh nymph fair
far through the pluff he’d glimpsed a glow of green
such beauty drew him to her, for to stare
pay homage to her globes he hoped to glean
nymph, nymph he glowered, sweetening his gaze
as moonlight cast a truth beam on intent
this young sylph, so accustomed to his ways
was not a stranger to his guileful glint
what are your beads that cast such radiant gleam?
they’re moonbeads, goblin, made of emerald glass
which thereupon his threat suddenly seemed
the type that beckoned kicking goblin ass
and so this marsh nymph, queen of her domain
unleashed unparalleled gonadic pain
-Kim Johnson
Common Threads 