I love Shakespeare. That's no secret. So I won't dwell on the whys, except to say that I come back to it over and over only to find a different nuance, a deeper meaning, a place to cry, to laugh, to find the romantic, to see beautiful tragedy and feel it in my bones, and even to find the erotic.

Every Sunday I tip my hat to the Bard in something I call Shakespeare Sunday. I share something on Facebook, and I use the hashtag #ShakespeareSunday on Twitter. I'm pretty sure I didn't invent the idea, but I've embraced it and have been doing for almost two years now.

Please join me in celebrating a few of my favorite, and lesser known, quotes by the esteemed Bard.

1. King John: "And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse."

To me this is a very important quote to remember. We must take responsibility for our actions. We mustn't blame others, and there is nothing worse than someone who doesn't say sorry. I will not be that person. I will make mistakes, but I will own them when I do. Too many people hurt each other and don't accept their part in the mess. I wish more people would think about not only the beauty in admitting faults, but seeing that forgiveness can only be achieved with honesty.

2. Two Gentlemen of Verona: "Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears. Moist it again, and frame some feeling line. That may discover such integrity."

There is nothing more powerful for a writer and a reader than feeling the emotion poured into a work. My favorite works, both of my own writing and of others, is filled with wounds. It's what makes us human, it's what connects us, and it's why I got lost in reading and in writing, to feel. If I don't feel it on an emotional level, it has no impact on me. What I love about this line is its irony. Shakespeare writes with brilliant integrity. I'm surprised this quote doesn't get more attention. His words will never be dry as long as we continue to read them, an echo of his famous sonnet's last couplet in "Shall I Compare Thee..." It's every writer's dream to be immortalized.  "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

3. Much Ado About Nothing: "I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes." 

This makes it onto the list for its mere romanticism. It shows the very living and breathing of love. Love. What makes us feel alive. That. What is often missed is the subtle sexual allusion to the orgasm, "to die in," and the idea of la petit mort. It is worth every moment, a love that passionate, even if it kills us, the memory of it forever buried in the window of one's eyes. A love that strong and a passion that felt remains in a person's heart. We all live to find that penultimate. It makes me sigh every time I read it.

4.  A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind."

This quote says it all, even if possibly out of context. Attraction. Lust. Love. It may begin by some physical attraction, but it won't last if the minds aren't connected. This rings so true in today's world with the internet and social media. It's amazing to me that regardless of the century, the human condition remains the same. We live to love and feel. I can't tell you how many people I have connected to strongly without ever having seen them. Words. The mind. The connection to another human being goes far beyond their looks. And to truly love, I would wager that the minds connect on some "soul" level. And when it does, it makes every heartache endured to get to that point worth it every time.

5. The Merchant of Venice: "With mirth and laughter old wrinkles come." 

Though one of the more commonly known quotes, I would be remiss if I didn't share a nod to the Bard's birthday! But more than that, it's true, especially today. So many people worry about their appearance. The media, society, pressure to look a certain way. But without laughter, without letting yourself live, you won't. It's really that simple. Let life knock the crap out of you. And look at every wrinkle as a stroke from the varied palette that painted who you are. For true love looks with the mind, not the eyes. Haven't you heard? Celebrate each mark that has made you uniquely you.

Share your favorite, timeless Shakespeare quotes and join me in saying, Happy Birthday, Will. 

I love the written word. The beauty that can be found in just the right words, put together just the right way to make me feel something. And I cringe when writers of prose tell me they’re not poets. Of course they are. Poetry is prose with line breaks. And Found Poetry is a beautiful example of that.

The Academy of American Poets (poets.org) describe Found Poetry as follows:

“Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems...
"A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.”

Many people don’t think it’s a legitimate medium or a “real” poem. I disagree. I’ve taken a few of my favorite writers and positioned them in such a way as to turn something already beautiful and romantic into a new work, with a different heartbeat, a different cadence, a different breath, ultimately, a different work of art.

Take Virginia Wolf’s reworking here:

I’ve even taken bits and pieces of my own novels and older blogs and found passages that I felt captured an emotion, an image, a moment that was worth putting into the still-life of a poem, which I will share in a slide show below.

I challenge you to join me and The Nu Romantics every Friday for the #FoundPoetryFriday writing prompt. Every human being who breathes life on this Earth is a poet. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. It is what makes us indeed, uniquely human as Walt Whtiman reminds us.
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​Find The Nu Romantics on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheNuRomantics/​ Join the revolution.

Enjoy some of my found poetry from my original works below.  And you can find my books by visiting my main webpage or Amazon: 
​www.amazon.com/R.B.-OBrien/e/B00TEF5PT8/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1.