I recently entered a Poetry Society competition in which we had to write a response to one (or more) of Shakespeare’s sonnets. I submitted a response to Sonnet 12 but I also attempted a response to Sonnet 108. I have included a copy of the original sonnet.
Original Sonnet 108
What’s in the brain that ink may character
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
What’s new to speak, what now to register,
That may express my love or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must each day say o’er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Ev’n as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
Finding the first conceit of love there bred
Where time and outward form would show it dead.
…
Response to Sonnet 108
The brain is not the place I find my words,
The organ where I have the space to think;
It’s in my heart where poetry is stirred
And fuel for my writing is not ink.
I cherish old expressions with the new,
Rework and craft them into sentences;
Repetition of sentiment to you
Emphasises all my purest senses.
But in the sense of age we are not young;
Time’s mark is etched on our vitality.
Love does not forget songs already sung,
It weaves them into our life’s tapestry.
As long as my imagination lives
I shall have unlimited words to give.
writing in north norfolk 