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Shakespeare

The Master strolled upon the beach,
__And stooped to find
Among the shells washed up in heaps,
__Mere husks of Mind—

Selecting them to suit his sense
__Of what would score
To entertain an audience
__That roared for more.

But did he ever come to know
__Whence flowed his Art?
In all his dramas and his poems,
__This plays no part.

For I have put him to the test,
__And placed his shell
Beside my ear, and tried to guess
__What he might tell.

But past the echoes of his voice
__I could not hear.
Though all his Art made me rejoice,
__The end was clear:

To charm me whilst he struts his hour
__Upon the stage—
His tales evolved by that same power
__My dreams engage.

Then I to the one source of being
__As close may stand,
Or closer than he to the stream
__That moved his hand.

Refute me with my own poor lines:
__This dog, perforce,
Devours the carcass of the lion
__And barks his roar.

.

.

Secret Shopper

I browse in antique shops but never buy.
I’m always searching there for something old,
But seldom find what’s old enough to try.

Neglect, patina, ambiance I crave—
The sense of things that were so modern once,
And now are untold stories in the grave.

You won’t catch me shoplifting and emboldened.
Too slick for that, I stash goods in my mind:
My head’s chock full of oddities unstolen.

Antique myself I find it suits my ways
To gravitate toward things Sub specie
Aeternitatis, as the Ancients say.

So when you stop me on my way back out,
Don’t think you’ll nail me with the loot in hand.
Feel free to frisk me if you’ve any doubt.

I’m your best patron, take my word or not!
Though should you meet another who’s like me,
He’ll tell you what I’ve told you, on the spot.

.

.

Lee Evans resides in Bath, Maine, and works for the local YMCA. His poetry has been published in The Christendom Review, Mused: The Bella Online Literary Review, The Poetry Porch, and elsewhere. His books of poetry are all available on Lulu.com.

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13 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    On your first poem my mind was lost. Were you writing by the sea? Or maybe you were looking at a painting by Botticelli? You alluded to a stream, perhaps it was Avon. Or maybe you conceived it on a beach you were upon? Maybe it is deeper than my mind’s prepared to go. I hope you will explain it. My mind would like to know. “The Secret Shopper” speaks to those of us who enjoy looking at art and antiques. I share the thoughts in your well-written and well-presented poem.

    Reply
  2. Lee Evans

    Roy,

    Thanks for your comments. I seem to have been influenced by Emerson’s essay, “The Over Soul,” in which he wrote “Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is descending into us from we know not whence.” Hence the comment about “the one source of being.” One can take that however one wants. But you don’t have to be Shakespeare to live from that source, and as the Biblical proverb goes, “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” Or as in my case, a minor poet who lives by his own experience and not in someone else’s shadow, no matter how great that shadow is….and so on, following the implications of that thought.

    Anyway, I think I just ruined things by over explaining!

    Take Care,

    Lee

    Reply
  3. Joseph S. Salemi

    It’s not often that a poem gets under my skin, but “Shakespeare” does. It tries to judge Shakespeare by non-aesthetic standards. The speaker admits that Shakespeare entertains him, that he makes him rejoice, and that he charms him. OK, fine. What else could one want?

    Shakespeare was an artist of colossal ability and accomplishment. You don’t judge art by philosophical or religious standards. I hope I don’t start a war now, but this poem hits a hot-button issue that we at the SCP have tried to skirt. No artist is obliged to adhere to any kind of “Something Higher” when he creates his artwork. His only obligation is to be an excellent craftsman.

    Judging Shakespeare to be wanting because he doesn’t quote scripture, or genuflect, or wear a phylactery, or bow to Mecca, or recite Buddhist mantras, or pay explicit homage to some Platonic “higher power” or Emersonian “Over-Soul” is — at root — an anti-aesthetic stance. And speaking of him as an empty shell who just struts on stage is as puritanical as a censor who wants to cover up the nakedness of the Venus di Milo.

    Reply
    • Evan Mantyk

      Maybe Lee could elaborate but I read this as saying what made Shakespeare great can make us great too and even so the Poet acknowledges he may be wrong in the end.

      Reply
  4. Maria

    I really like both poems. The first poem is a tribute to Shakespeare who took from the stream of mind and passed it on to us as we now partake of his work which has now become part of that stream.
    I could be wrong, but I see the second poem as a metaphor in that the antique shop is not about physical things but about great works of art
    passed down to us that we enjoy and as we read them they leave their mark on us. therefore we take a little with us. Not stealing of course but partaking from the minds that have gone before us, leaving their mark and therefore enriching us.

    Reply
  5. Joseph S. Salemi

    We can all interpret the poem “Shakespeare” in different ways, of course. But it seems pretty clear to me that the first six quatrains of the piece make some rather dismissive and uncomplimentary remarks about its subject, to wit:

    Shakespeare gathered up empty shells on the beach, that were “Mere husks of Mind.”

    He picked only those that he thought would “entertain” his roaring audience.

    He never knew where his art came from, and all his dramas and poems show not the slightest awareness that he cared about the matter.

    I put his empty “shell” to my ear, but didn’t hear a thing except “the echoes of his voice.”

    His only apparent aim was to charm and entertain, while he strutted around the stage.

    The poem seems to end with the speaker saying “I, on the other hand, am more deeply attuned to the ‘one source of being’ or ‘the power’ or ‘the stream’ of poetic creativity.” As for the last quatrain, by referencing that Biblical proverb it seems to be saying “Shakespeare’s dead — I’m alive. One point up for me.”

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Joe, my reading of the Shakespeare poem is substantially similar to yours. If I were to paraphrase the poem on the whole it would be: Isn’t it remarkable that Shakespeare wrote such wonderful plays and poems and did so by tapping into a source of creative power, and isn’t it a shame that he didn’t try to determine the source of that creative power. Well I did, and I’m alive and that makes me the better man for it. Hear me roar.”

      And, of course, the allusion is to Ecclesiastes “A living dog is better than a dead lion.”

      God knows I’m a believer, but I tend to resist poetry that demands attention to God in every context — especially when it is organic to the work at hand. I am even more resistant to poetry that would trivialize the greatest of all English-speaking authors because he was insufficiently worshipful. Shakespeare knew how “to score” with an audience. That’s a good thing. So does Spielberg at the movies. What is the criticism here?

      This is indeed a divide which has considerable consequence for the poetry world. Is it true that only believers can achieve greatness? And believers in what, precisely?

      Reply
  6. Maria

    So interesting , that as readers we can focus on different words that tilt the meaning one way or another. The poet begins by calling Shakespeare, The master, who stoops to select mere husks and then sets about creating for his audience who roared for more.

    I infer that the reason the poet cannot hear anything past the echoes of Shakespeare’s voice is that Shakespeare has eclipsed that which went before him.

    At the end, the poet refers to himself as the dog that barks whilst the lion ie Shakespeare roars.

    The poet does not categorically state that Shakespeare did not know where his art came from but rather asks the question whether he knew or not. Whether or not he knew does not matter according to the poet for what is significant is that now the poet can take from the stream that Shakespeare so richly enriched is how I read it.

    The tone of the poem appears casual though. It is not reverential but seems to examine the great master as a playwriter who appears to have casually churned out countless masterpieces.

    Perhaps as Evan wisely points out the poet will help us out.

    Reply
  7. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Lee, thank you for these intriguing and engaging poems. I am a huge fan of the Bard. I studied his works for years. I will admit to having difficulty interpreting “Shakespeare”, especially these words: “Though all his Art made me rejoice, / The end was clear:/ To charm me whilst he struts his hour/ Upon the stage – ” I believe the poem hints at future poets standing on the shoulders of giants with their art, but (for me) Shakespeare isn’t depicted as a giant in this poem. The narrative voice is portrayed as superior in that there is a connection to the a creative impulse here and now that Shakespeare’s works don’t reveal. When it’s said that Shakespeare writes to “charm” and that is all, I believe Shakespeare’s still living, still breathing words offer us so much more than “charm”. And who can say where his creative impulse came from – only Shakespeare knows that.

    Thank you, Lee and Joe, for making me think deeply about poetry, its purpose, and the interpretation of it.

    Reply
  8. Roy Eugene Peterson

    The biggest problem to me besides the ending of the dog devouring the lion was voiced in the first few verses with the shells, husks, and the following:
    But did he ever come to know
    __Whence flowed his Art?
    In all his dramas and his poems,
    __This plays no part.

    I beg to differ, since I recall from my studies once upon a time that most of his works came from sources. I looked this up on the Internet and found:

    “Shakespeare only ever wrote two plays with original plots: Love’s Labor’s Lost and The Tempest. For all his other works he borrowed plots from other writers, often re-ordering events, inserting subplots, and adding or removing characters. The book he relied on most heavily for plot ideas was Holinshed’s Chronicles. Published in 1577, the Chronicles is a collaborative work written by Raphael Holinshed and others. The volume includes histories of England, Scotland, and Ireland from the earliest time of inhabitation to the mid-sixteenth century. The Chronicles served as Shakespeare’s source for nearly all of his history plays. The plot of Macbeth also came from the Chronicles, as did plot elements for King Lear and Cymbeline. Shakespeare’s second most important source was a book by the Roman historian Plutarch, titled Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Shakespeare may have read the book in the original Latin, but he definitely read Thomas North’s English-language translation. We know this because Shakespeare clearly based Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens on North’s translation. Indeed, sometimes Shakespeare followed North’s wording so closely that a reader can figure out which page of Lives he drew on for particular scenes.”

    Source: SparkNotes, William Shakespeare’s Life and Times (William Shakespeare’s Life and Times: Sources | SparkNotes)

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Shakespeare had a very respectable education, and he was an avid reader of translations from other languages, including the classics. Of course the anti-Stratfordians have done all in their power to use this as some kind of “proof” that he couldn’t have possibly written the works that are attributed to him. They say that only a genteel nobleman who attended university could have written those works.

      The anti-Stratfordians are snobbish idiots — Wesley Purdy is the latest in a long line of sniffy elitists who have parroted this narrative. But they keep grinding out their stupid and tendentious books, which real scholars ignore.

      Reply
  9. Maria

    Forgive me but I love me a good discussion. And where else could a non scholar such as myself have the chance to read the views of accomplished poets that I admire But when all appear to have a different angle on this poem , it gives me pause.
    From Dr Salemi I have learned that a poem is a fictive artefact and so I look at it as whether it works for me or not. I am not an expert nor do I engage in any thoughts as to whether Shakespeare was really Shakespeare or not.
    All I can think now is that it is a case of ,
    Is the glass half full or half empty as far as this poem is concerned. I’ think I’ve said enough.
    But darn it I am still curious to know about the second poem.

    Reply
  10. Paul A. Freeman

    I’ve read ‘Shakespeare’ a few times now. My interpretation was that Shakespeare himself saw his plays as little more than ‘two hours’ traffic on the stage’. It is us that have elevated him, and in an era of celebrity can’t see this. In the final stanza, the author compares his work to that of the Bard and finds himself wanting, much as Eric Clapton did when comparing himself to Jimi Hendrix, and finds himself depressingly wanting.

    I did like ‘Secret Shopper’. The idea that you virtually shop for antiques, filing the items away in your brain rather than covetously wanting to physically possess them is refreshing.

    Thanks for the reads, Lee.

    Reply

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