Friday, October 28, 2011

Authorship Haiku Competition: Win a copy of Contested Will!

Shapiro, James. Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
Anonymous. Dir. Edward D. Wood, Jr. Perf. David Hasselhoff, Sarah Jessica Parker, Mark Wahlberg, Lindsay Lohan, and Willem Dafoe. Columbia Pictures. 30 September 2011.
Thanks to the kind auspices of Simon and Schuster, I have two copies of James Shapiro's magisterial Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?—which I've mentioned before on this blog—to give away, and I thought the Shakespeare-reading community, in light of the recent release of Anonymous, would appreciate a creative outlet for their thoughts on the authorship issue. Bardfilm provides.

This is your chance to compose a haiku on the subject! Please submit your English-Language Haiku on any aspect of the authorship issue in the comments below. When we have selected the winners, we will post their names and invite them to e-mail their addresses directly to us to claim their prizes.

Here, then, are the details of the competition:
  1. For the purposes of this competition, an English-language Haiku is defined as a poem consisting of three lines, the first and last of which have five syllables and the middle of which has seven syllables. We recognize that other forms are viable poetic expressions—but not for this competition. The judges will be strict on this point, so make sure your haiku follows the 5-7-5 syllable rule. For a sample, see my award-winning Shakespeare haiku.

  2. Haiku must be posted before 11:59 p.m. Central Time on Thursday, November 3, 2011 in order to be eligible for the competition.

  3. Submitted Haiku must be the original work of the submitter (we'll be checking).

  4. One haiku per person, please!

  5. There will be three judges to this competition: The author of Bardfilm, the author of Shakespeare Geek, and blogger and Twitterer PlaysTheTart.

  6. The decisions of the judges are final.

  7. We reserve the right to add to this list of rules.
The authors of the top two Haiku will each receive a paperback copy of Contested Will; a consolation prize (a used copy of Drama of the English Renaissance, edited by M. L. Wince) will go to the third-place winner.
Stratfordian's Lament
"Who wrote Shakespeare's plays?"—
A hopeless tautology?
Not to Ed De Vere.
With that, you may commence posting!
Note: The winners have been announced!
For more Shakespearean haiku, see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare in Haiku.

Click below to purchase the book from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

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24 comments:

  1. monksohamOctober 28, 2011 at 2:41 PM

    more a limerick:
    There once was a man called de vere/
    who they claim is the true will shakespeare/I say did he ever write a true tale d'hiver?/O that silly young man called de vere.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Christina SquitieriOctober 28, 2011 at 2:54 PM

    "Edward de Vere, Dead in 1604, Continues Writing Shakespeare's Plays"

    If de Vere wrote "Lear"/
    He had to be a zombie--/
    Title is not "Brains"!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Andrew HuntleyOctober 28, 2011 at 4:31 PM

    Epic scholar fail:
    de Vere is no great writer
    And Emmerich is a fool.

    ReplyDelete
  4. kjOctober 28, 2011 at 5:51 PM

    I can tell already that the competition is going to be stiff!

    Thanks!

    kj

    ReplyDelete
  5. kjOctober 28, 2011 at 6:31 PM

    Here's another of mine (don't worry—I'm not included in the list of possible winners):

    Oxford wrote the plays.
    But he had to hire some help:
    Infinite monkeys.

    Thanks!

    kj

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jennifer DelamereOctober 28, 2011 at 6:56 PM

    Heed not the doubters
    Mediocrity will die
    But the Bard lives on.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Becky MyersOctober 29, 2011 at 9:29 AM

    Bacon once told me
    He wrote all of Shakespeare's plays.
    Ne'er heed talking food.

    ReplyDelete
  8. diiqOctober 29, 2011 at 11:19 AM

    Are titles fair game? If so, ignore the silly title. *ahem*



    "Ah --- Speak, Seer!"

    Name him, whose pen pulled
    bluebottles from blank pages ---
    spontaneous life!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Papa PantaloonOctober 30, 2011 at 6:53 AM

    Who would have thought it?
    The world’s greatest lit. arrives
    anonymously.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Tom Snout's GrammaOctober 30, 2011 at 3:21 PM

    The Earl of Oxford,
    The educated scholar,
    Can't steal the glory.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Rod BeilfussOctober 31, 2011 at 2:31 PM

    Who builds pyramids?
    Aliens! Who wrote Will's works then?
    An Earl, don't you know?!

    ReplyDelete
  12. DramaMattOctober 31, 2011 at 4:17 PM

    A question for the debaters:

    Would YOU secretly
    Name your masterwork after
    Someone else's son?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Robin Starveling's GrammaOctober 31, 2011 at 4:22 PM

    So how did Will write?
    Iambic pentameter.
    No help from the Earl.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Mad MinervaNovember 2, 2011 at 7:08 AM

    Want real fantasy
    Told with skill? Screw Emmerich.
    Go read "The Tempest."

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hermia's GrammaNovember 2, 2011 at 1:21 PM

    O Edward deVere
    Seventeenth Earl of Oxford
    Turning in his grave.

    ReplyDelete
  16. kjNovember 3, 2011 at 7:10 AM

    Thanks to all submitters! Here's a last one from me. It intimates that I think titles are all right--even though this one has more syllables than the poem.

    I Coulda Been a Pretendah; or, Ockham's Razor Cuts Both Ways

    Bacon or Marlowe?
    Elizabeth? Oxford?
    No. William Shakespeare.

    Take care!

    kj

    ReplyDelete
  17. Papa PantaloonNovember 3, 2011 at 7:27 AM

    Um, isn't that second line one syllable short? Here's a fix: "Elizabeth? Oxford? (hiss)"

    ReplyDelete
  18. kjNovember 3, 2011 at 7:32 AM

    Very good! You pass the test . . . yes, the test that I set up to see if you were observing the rules!

    Thanks! I'll just shove another "or" in there (instead of insisting that Ell-iss-a-beh-eth is five syllables).

    I Coulda Been a Pretendah; or, Ockham's Razor Cuts Both Ways

    Bacon or Marlowe?
    Elizabeth or Oxford?
    No. William Shakespeare.

    Thanks for the correction!

    kj

    ReplyDelete
  19. AlexiNovember 3, 2011 at 7:03 PM

    The Problem With Reading Plays Autobiographically:

    Come on guys, it's clear,
    In retrospect, obvious,
    Hamlet wrote Shakespeare.

    ReplyDelete
  20. ~*sim*~November 3, 2011 at 8:59 PM

    Emmerich: "Where there's
    a Will, there's de Vere!" I plead:
    "Let sleeping bards lie."

    ReplyDelete
  21. dcbyronNovember 3, 2011 at 10:11 PM

    You think me simple,
    Ill at ease with quill in hand,
    Poor bare forked muse?

    ReplyDelete
  22. TZNovember 3, 2011 at 10:52 PM

    As his honest Puck,
    those nightly dreams all jewels,
    Shakespeare was no fool.

    ReplyDelete
  23. kjNovember 4, 2011 at 10:35 AM

    The competition is closed, and the judges are meeting in a conspiratorial manner to determine the winners.

    kj

    ReplyDelete
  24. kjNovember 4, 2011 at 9:21 PM

    The winners have been announced!

    http://bardfilm.blogspot.com/2011/11/haiku-competition-winners.html

    Thanks!

    kj

    ReplyDelete