Book Review: On Shakespeare’s Sonnets – A Poets’ Celebration  

Edited by Hannah Crawforth and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann
Published by Bloomsbury, Arden Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets are some of the loveliest and best known poems in English. And as Mr Shakespeare knew they would (“my verse shall stand” – Sonnet 60) they have more than stood the test of time since they were first published in 1609.

Now, to mark the quartercentenary of Shakespeare’s death – comes a rather ingenious book in which 30 of today’s most acclaimed poets – including Andrew Motion, Wendy Cope, Douglas Dunn, Paul Mundoon, Gillian Clarke – have been asked to contribute some form of poetic response to the sonnets. Some have written sonnets of their own. Others have written other forms of poetry. Roger McGough has assembled a new cleverly coherent sonnet entirely out of Shakespeare’s first lines, claiming that he simply couldn’t devise an original sonnet of his own.

Thus we get Paul Farley’s poem Gentian Violet (with echoes of DH Lawrence, who was himself profoundly influenced by Shakespeare) in response to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 99 “The forward violet thus did I chide”. And there are moving responses by Jo Shapcott and David Harsent to Sonnet 73 about ageing and mortality “That time of year thou mayst in me behold”.

I found plenty of potential for some interesting free rein English and other lessons in this sparky little book. Why not share some of the sonnets with Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4 and post-16 students and then ask them to write their own responses in any poetic form they wish? Or use some or these poems as a way of exploring and gaining understanding of different sonnet forms. Or just enjoy them yourself and share with your students!.