In honor of National Poetry Month, Fulton County Arts & Culture launches the Fulton County Sonnet Project, a collaboration between Fulton County Arts and Culture, the Fulton County Poet Laureate, and the Atlanta Shakespeare Co.
FULTON COUNTY POET LAUREATE
Dr. Karen Head
Sonnets have been one of the most popular forms of poetry throughout history. Almost everyone reads a sonnet when they are in school, but often the language of the sonnets from writers like Shakespeare can seem foreign—like trying to understand a foreign language. Poetry, as a form of writing, has a kind of language, too. Learning to understand sonnets is a great way to expand your knowledge about all forms of poetry. Because sonnets are like puzzles—they have to follow the rules of the form— word order is often a little different from how we speak.
With help from some wonderful actors from the Atlanta Shakespeare Company, we hope you can begin to see how the "puzzle" works by introducing you to a small collection of Shakespeare's sonnets. The more you listen to sonnets or any poetry, the more you understand how it works. Hearing different people read is like listening to different musicians "cover" a song. These actors have chosen their favorite sonnets, shared their reasons for loving their selections, and then recited them in a way that is both informative and entertaining.
After you listen a few times, you should try to read the poems. All of the sonnets are available for free online. While you are online, you can also look up the words you don't understand in a dictionary. Here is a link to a free e-version of all of Shakespeare's sonnets, presented by Project Gutenberg:
SONNETS
Sonnet 29 - Gabriella Anderson
Sonnet 38 - Dani Herd
Sonnet 49 - Patty de la Garza
Sonnet 50- Olivia Dawson
Sonnet 55- Kenneth Wigley
Sonnet 59- Sarah Beth Hester
Sonnet 76- Jeff Watkins
Sonnet 116- Amanda Lindsey McDonald
Sonnet 118- Kirsten Chervenak
Sonnet 129 - Rivka Levin
Sonnet 130- O'Neil Delapenha
Sonnet 149- Cameryn Richardson