Recycling Shakespeare for a Better World – A Haiku Sonnet

In this brave new world

Plant a heart of gold, harvest

A bouquet of friends

Faint-hearted farming

Doesn’t yield food for the soul

Cold comfort hunger

Break the ice – Be brave

Be fancy free with warm words

Of love and welcome

All our yesterdays

Are meant to be composted

Nutrient wisdom

Silence can kill with kindness

But regretful words do not.

This was a fun and challenging prompt initiated by Jamie for The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt. She writes, “Fe, foh, and fun … Take a spin with Shakespeare and write us a poem using phrases of his that have come into common usage.” I honestly didn’t realize that all these phrases came from Shakespeare’s work! I’ve really only read “Romeo and Juliet” and some sonnets so seeing all these common phrases attributed to his work was quite a surprise. Check out this link if you want to see what Shakespearean works the phrase I used came from.

And of course, I had to do a sonnet to further honor The Bard. To give it a bit of my own flavor, I chose the Haiku Sonnet form. Again, I never new there was such a thing until I saw it in this website here.

Learning new things and new ways of looking at the world is one of the best gifts I’ve gotten from writing and reading poetry. What do you think of this recycled Shakespearean piece?