Fakespeare Sonnets: The Winners
For his novel, The Tragedy of Arthur, Arthur Philips wrote an entire play that was a forgery of Shakespeare. (He described the creative process in his interview with Kurt Andersen last week.) We asked our listeners to get in on the act, and take a stab at a fake Shakespearean sonnet. Arthur Philips came back to pick the winner: “The Lost Serpent Sonnets of William Shakespeare,” by Sally Fisher, of New York. Arthur said Fisher’s lines were “clever, lovely, technically precise, romantic, and strangely moving in their argument that a snake’s life is one worth envying. And, as far as I can tell, they seem to be composed only of 16th-century vocabulary.” It takes a great faker to know one.
Outstanding Forgeries: The Winning Sonnets
Overall Winner: “The Lost Serpent Sonnets of William Shakespeare” by Sally Fisher
Sonnet 155 Read by Alex Gallafent
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When rampant rumor doth my ears confound And insult hound me for my mere shape’s sake, Then do I pause to sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the perjured snake.
The worthy serpent by the world full curst In truth is innocent and full of grace; His dimensions all compact, his mind well versed. Why therefore villain? Wherefore base?
Regard my supple body lithe and thin, My curling arabesques, my twin-tounged kiss; Hath not a serpent flesh, bones, skin? If struck–nay, trod upon–shall he not hiss?
Fie, hedge-pigs. Ye are slanderers most vile; Unworthy e’en to speak the name–Reptile.
Sonnet 156 Read by Alex Gallafent
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With all the world my very form abhorring, I forswear sunlight in the depths profound; I put away all whying and whereforing And breathe my earthy solace underground.
My life is honest, knavish in no wise; When stomach beckons I am stomach’s follower, For hunting is my weekly exercise; I am a most prodigious swallower.
I must perforce be almost all ways hiding But now and then I toss my fate to chance! And then I venture through the grasses gliding And wander sweetly in my arrogance.
Coiled in lazy spiral in the dappled fen, O then I scorn to change my state with men.
Sonnet 157 Read by Alex Gallafent
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When in the warm-ed rocks aroused from sleeping Then I, a tail without a dog, go wagging. Resplendent lover am I then, so subtly creeping From emerald orient, a pagan dragon!
My lady, O, she’s pliant, bright, and slim; A braided rope, we two, in love, are one, Betimes half in the pond, or hanging from a limb! My mistress’ eyes are something like–the sun!
O pity those who, granted hands and feet, Still lack our skill the golden day to seize; Expelled from serpent’s bower and all that’s sweet, Praying for something better on their–knees.
Who hath my bliss, that one is wealthiest; A bed of leaves is never second best.
Honorable Mention for Modern Language: “My Sister and I” by Laura Heidy-Halberstein Read by Mary Dooe
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We were the worst Girl Scouts. We did not sell our cookies we just freely passed them out to long-haired boys we barely knew and hell- bound men on low-slung bikes who’d hang about
a day or two until their engines cooled; until their red inked dragons scabbed; until our sainted mother dragged us home. She fooled no one. She wanted us to cry; to spill
our guts; to crack like china; crumb like cake; surrender unto Mom; to never cling to strangers but to her; to cower; quake on sheets still wet with Daddy’s sweat; to sing
through tears that only she could make us shed. She swore to God we’d bleed as she’d been bled.
Honorable Mention for Shakespeare Criticism in Sonnet Form: “As in Arden” by Philip Quinlan Read by Alex Gallafent
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Just as you like, it’s gay, about a tree; a gender switch in tran-Sylvania; the outing of true love (Act 1, Scene 3, and enter Ganymede); Swan monomania.
It’s rumoured that the bard swung either way– Elizabethans prized their manly love– though hosiery should not the jury sway, nor ruffs and earrings go the cause to prove.
In Venice , boy meets girl, the fun begins: the Jew’s demand for justice being harsh, bi Balthasar do tax him for his sins. When Portia states her case, in a moustache,
what cannot speak may, nonetheless, be heard. “Fair” Rosalind shall have the final word.