From the author: After five years of teaching inside two all-male State Prisons in Northern Ohio, I know first-hand the power of Shakespeare and poetry. Like other art forms, poetry is universal in its appeal. Shakespeare remains a source of powerful lessons. Sure, I have an expensive doctorate, and ifContinue Reading

No sportsman relishing a victoryagainst his foe in an athletic meetwould dish up such a large trajectoryof reportage. Yet she did who’d repeatthat some infatuated patron sethis heart upon her gender-bending rolein Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.Forget her flaunting feminine controlas Romeo’s ill-fated paramour -that followed later when she donned aContinue Reading

Where hast thou been, sister? –Macbeth Since the night I was born I’ve I’ll known howling at the moon, mixed kiss yours with my own, crossed all times rhymes to together by the born beards your beard on our faces. Even when apart of hurt women’s tales never tell andContinue Reading

SHADOW: Why hast thou summoned me once more from peaceful slumber?WILLIAM: I, summon thee? Surely you jest for ne’er once have I summoned thee. Thou appeare’st from torpid shadows to test mine patience, a fickle figment of mine craft and nothing more.SHADOW: Nay I say, nay. ‘Tis thy craft thatContinue Reading

Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mustardseedand Moth all will attend his need,Titania deems in Shakespeare’s “Dream”.Midsummer Night’s subversive schemepermits this Fairy to reversethe roles, so groom now bears the purse.And though it may appear a boonto be a ‘tended to’ buffoon,when sprites become your fancy’s guides,because the Queen of Fairies chidesthem to beContinue Reading

when you’re afraid to live and afraid to die every day is a conundrum to be or not to be the question calcifies your soul living involves risk failure heartache pain fear sits in your stomach like a rock as you grind your teeth and bite your nails not livingContinue Reading

“What’s wrong now?” The exasperation in Thea’s voice echoed around the auditorium. As soon as her words broke through the scene, the two actors in front of her retreated to opposite corners of the stage like boxers who had just heard the bell. Thea couldn’t help but sigh as sheContinue Reading

Words are symbols of other things. This word tree lacks real bark. Fundamentalists, dogmatists, literalists, densely misperceive a direct relation, an inviolable link, between some sole mental concept, inspired by a word, and an actual thing. There is no literal truth. A will never equal C, much less be. WordsContinue Reading

So where are all the fools and fairies? Quince, you string the lights and rig the gauzy scrim. Titania, shimmer all your sylvan innuendo in and vary like an otherworldly whim or a thought before the sin. Rustics, do some heavy lifting within that copse of wizened, watching oak. ImproviseContinue Reading