My Favourite Poet

My favourite poet is William Shakespeare. Although he is more famous as a play writer, he has composed 400 poems. His literary works have lived on since the 16th century till now.

Background:
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, allegedly on April 23, 1564. Church records from Holy Trinity Church indicate that he was baptized there on April 26, 1564. Young William was born of John Shakespeare, a glover and leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a landed heiress. William, according to the church register, was the third of eight children the Shakespeare household—three of whom died in childhood. John Shakespeare had a remarkable run of success as a merchant, and later as an alderman and high bailiff of Stratford, during William's early childhood. His fortunes declined, however, in the 1570s. Shakespeare's success is apparent when studied against other playwrights of this age. His company was the most successful in London in his day. He had plays published and sold in octavo editions, or "penny-copies" to the more literate of his audiences. It is noted that never before had a playwright enjoyed sufficient acclaim to see his works published and sold as popular literature in the midst of his career. While Shakespeare could not be accounted wealthy, by London standards, his success allowed him to purchase New House and retire in comfort to Stratford in 1611.

William Shakespeare wrote his will in 1611, bequeathing his properties to his daughter Susanna (married in 1607 to Dr. John Hall). To his surviving daughter Judith, he left £300, and to his wife Anne left "my second best bed." William Shakespeare allegedly died on his birthday, April 23, 1616. This is probably more of a romantic myth than reality, but Shakespeare was interred at Holy Trinity in Stratford on April 25. In 1623, two working companions of Shakespeare from the Lord Chamberlain's Men, John Heminges and Henry Condell, printed the First Folio edition of the Collected Works, of which half the plays contained therein were previously unpublished. The First Folio also contained Shakespeare's sonnets.

William Shakespeare's legacy is a body of work that will never again be equaled in Western civilization. His words have endured for 400 years, and still reach across the centuries as powerfully as ever. Even in death, he leaves a final piece of verse as his epitaph.

O from what power hast thou this powerful might

O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
With insufficiency my heart to sway?
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantise of skill
That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O, though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.
If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
More worthy I to be beloved of thee.

In the old age black was not counted fair

n the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame.
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,
At such who, not born fair no beauty lack,
Sland'ring creation with a false esteem.
Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date even to eternity—
Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more.
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
Were to import forgetfulness in me.

Sources:http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_shakespeare/poems
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets.html
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_shakespeare/poems/1371
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_shakespeare/poems/1376
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_shakespeare/poems/1401

Favourite Poem

A Friend's Love
By Jacquilyn Flory

No one really knows
What kind of bond we share
And even if I told them
They probably wouldn't care

You are very dear to me
I hope you know it's true
And now that you are sick
Tell me what that I should do?

While you've been gone
A part of me has been lost
It's like I've taken our friendship for granted
And now I'm paying the cost

I never knew how much you meant to me
Until you went away
The thought of you being really sick
Haunted me every day

I spent a few days at school alone
And my weekend was such a bore
A lot of my time was spent in my room
I think my mom's ready to break down the door

And now I make this vow to you
To keep until the end
I'll help you through the pain and tears
Until our rivers bend

So if you ever need someone
You know just who to call
I'll be here by the phone
To catch you if you fall

".....ready to break down the door"This is a hyperbole. The author uses it to exaggerate the time spent in the room.



I like this poem because it shows a person's care and concern for a friend. It shows how close the two are. The words used in the poem express the author's life without her friend, the vacuum in her life without her friend. She was ready to help her friend in any way she could. She realises how much she misses her friend and how much that cost her. There was a strong bond between her and her friend. Her mind was almost in a blank when she realised that her friend was ill. This shows the true, deep friendship between the author and her friend.

The Mercurial Tom

The Terror Of Murders is on the street.
People are dying.
Every night is a horror.
No where is safe.
They say there's a new hope.
But on this dark night,
it was downed.
"They will never learn, will they?"
My partner sighed and threw the corpse into the gutter.
"Who's next on the list?"

The Uninvited Movie Review

*I was not invited to write this review so ahem... The uninvited review*

The movie was frightening as well as interesting. Would a mentally unstable person really imagine so many things that she would kill four innocent people. The first two died together. Mother and sister were killed accidentally when a gas tap was not turned off and a candle was knocked down, causing the boathouse to explode. After coming back from the mental hospital, the girl, Anna thought that her sister, Alex was still alive and that the stepmother,Rachel, meant to kill the whole family and was actually Mildred Kemp, a serial killer. Anna begins to hallucinate even worse, imagining that her mother was trying to tell her that it was Rachel who had murdered her.

When her boyfriend Matt wanted to meet her at night, she pushes him off the rocks into the sea and imagined that it was Rachel who had killed him. Anna thought that Rachel, had killed Matt to silence him when it was she who had killed her mother and Alex. Then there were the Wright siblings. They were the victims of Mildred Kemp. They were stabbed repeatedly after being sedated. Anna keeps on seeing them. Anna went to the police station to report that Rachel was Mildred Kemp and the police officer thought that Anna was mentally unsound. In the end, Anna killed Rachel after being sedated and thinking that Rachel was going to kill her. This movie makes me think how serious a mental illness or trauma can affect a person. Is it serious enough to make him or her kill? This movie was quite horribly scary with all the sound effects but I liked it anyway because it stimulates imagination and thinking.

P.S. I got a nightmare after watching this show.

Book review on Arthur High King of Britian

This story tells the tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in a different way. This story does not begin just with the sword in the stone and all, but with a little boy who meets King Arthur as an old man, hibernating. The boy had gone fishing and swam to a nearby island against his parents' instructions. He nearly drowned until and Arthur found him and began to tell the boy his story. The story of King Arthur.

The story was told in the perspective of Arthur.The story reveals much that I did not know, such as King Arthur running away from home and meeting Merlin or King Arthur having a dogs named Bercelet. The story includes several touching parts in which the hero of that particular section gets hacked or chopped to pieces. Then in the end, King Arthur or Merlin comes to save the day. Arthur made several bad decisions which resulted in Modred being able to wreak havoc while Arthur was fighting Lancelot, once his good friend, in France. Modred and his army were destroyed but so was King Arthur's army. The story ends when the boy decides to go home after hearing the story only to find out only a few hours had passed even though the man had said it was a day and a half.

"Here in this place, we are beyond the reach of time."
-Arthur Pendragon