Why Not Write Wednesday: Shakespeare 400

This week, language lovers around the world are celebrating 400 years since the death of Shakespeare (and 452 years since his birth!). Celebrations of Shakespeare's life and work have been happening across the globe and will continue through this year. In honor of the Bard, try your hand at writing (or re-writing) a sonnet. A Shakespearean sonnet has 14 lines - 3 quatrains of 4 lines each followed by a rhyming couplet that resolves the theme or problem set in the quatrains. The rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

If thou needs inspiration, here is Sonnet #18:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

And every fair form fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

But they eternal summal shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Share your writing with us! Post your sonnet in the comments section of our blog!

Why Not Write Wednesdays? Creative Writing Prompts for Kids!

Every Wednesday our creative writing prompt challenges you to pick up your pen and indulge your author self!  Happy 450th birthday, William Shakespeare! In honor of the Bard's day, today's prompt asks you to write in his style - whether it be sonnet, dramatic scene (in iambic pentameter if you wish) or creative insult! Did you know that Shakespeare invented over 1700 of our common words including eyeball, courtship, champion, laughable, luggage & generous? Create some of your own!

Share with us! Post your creations in the comments section of our blog.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day is marked full of love letters, songs, sonnets and more writing created to express love. To honor Valentine's Day this year, we thought we'd share some of our favorite love poems. Enjoy! Sonnet 43 - How do I love thee? Let me count the waysby Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Love Sonnet 18by Shakespeare

Shall I compare you to a summer's day? You are more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease has all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed; But your eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair you owe; Nor shall Death brag you wander in his shade, When in eternal lines to time you grow: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

i carry your heart with meby e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)