It's from a series I've been working on intermittently for the past 7 years or so, the Hamlet Sonnets. This is only the fourth poem in the series, so when I say intermittent that's what I mean. But I have really enjoyed taking my time with them, letting a new poem bleed out whenever it does. I wonder if this is one of those projects that's never going to be finished, just uncompleted when my ticket gets punched.
I first read Hamlet at 13. It became one of the few things I'd memorize sections of, read aloud in my room, find ways to shoehorn lines or phrases into conversations. Memorization isn't my thing: if I can't reason my way to a fact there's little chance it will stay in my head. (Except for chemical formulas for several common acidic substances, which my friend Jono helpfully set to the tune of the Village People's "YMCA": "H2SO4! HNO3.... HClO4! HCl, HBr, and HI these all are... the CO-MMON A-CIDS!!!!")
But if I were forced to recite everything I had ever known by heart, three-quarters of it would be snippets of the Bible, lyrics by U2 and generous portions of this play. For the record, my favorite film version is Branagh's but I prefer Helena Bonham-Carter as Ophelia, the creepy incestuous Glenn Close confrontation scene from Zefirelli's adaptation and Ethan Hawke delivering the "To be or not to be" soliloquy in the Action section of Blockbuster Video while in the background Brandon Lee as The Crow walks away from a huge fireball in glorious slow-motion.
NOTE: My poem "Hamlet Sonnet: Bedchamber" used to be here. Now it's not. What gives?
I'm preparing to submit poems for publication and almost every literary journal demands "right of first publication." Unfortunately — and laughably — this small corner of the Interwebs counts as prior publication, so they gots ta come down. Sadface.
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