Something You Can’t Forget

It was Mrs. Mary Lou Oxley’s 9th grade honors English class. She had given us a Romeo and Juliet project and we had our pick of fifty-some different assignments, including Globe theatre replicas, Renaissance cuisine, costume design, and good old-fashioned essays. Being who I was at 15, I quickly skimmed the handout searching for the easiest project -- the one that would require the least amount of my precious time so I could attend to my more pressing issues and interests of nail-painting, Seventeen magazine, and my dad’s classic rock collection on vinyl.

So being the genius that I was, I chose this task: Memorize and perform a soliloquy. Because that’s easy, see? I could barely pronounce soliloquy let alone pronounce some of these archaic words (methinks?!) and keep the meter and proportion of poetry with grace.

But, I followed through with my project. I was an honors student after all and my folks expected good grades. I studied and set out to memorize Juliet’s soliloquy before she drinks the potion from Friar Laurence to fake her death, trick her family, and be with her one true love. Hardly any of it made sense to me. First of all, what guy was worth fake-killing yourself over, and second of all, how could you ever possibly love another person with such wild abandon? I memorized the speech and I performed it for my class, complete with an ill-fitting Elizabethan gown and a terrible and dramatic fall to the cold floor.

It’s been a long time since Mrs. Oxley’s English class, and I forget the words to the speech. I forget who most of my classmates were and how they reacted to my amateur yet earnest performance. I forget where I put my old yearbook with the photo of me drinking the fake poison from a glass from an old prom. I even forget most everything else I learned in Mrs. Oxley’s English class.

But what I remember far out measures what I forget. Reciting poetry over and over and over again until it was my language, and that language getting stuck in my head for years to come. Wanting so badly when I was sad and sick of it all to just tear apart and burn or give to the gods the sacrifice of poems and lines from books that made me feel feelings I didn’t want to anymore, and then remembering how beautiful and how fitting they had been – like worn-in blue jeans. Carrying around with me and trying, with sincerity, to find the right way to share some delight in poetry with other people – and eventually with my students, and then my own children -- hoping they’d notice the magic and feeling validated and the love of wild abandon when they did.

I am almost certain that I can trace this absolute gut wrenching, make-your-teeth-hurt love of language and poetry back to that 9th grade honors English class with Mrs. Mary Lou Oxley. And I won’t ever forget it.

Happy Birthday, Billy Shakespeare!

Your task: Celebrate William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday!

Directions:

Choose and complete one of the following options:

1. Food & Drink inspired by Macbeth

Ever get a hankerin’ for a blood orange? Or how about a Big Mac?

- You will create, prepare, and share a dish inspired by the story.- Your plate must be accompanied by:

o A clever and thought-out recipe that pays homage to the texto A half page reflection explaining the inspiration and reasoning behind your dish.

2. Recitation Performance

Do what the greats have done and memorize and recite Shakespeare.

- You must choose, memorize, and recite at least 14 lines of Shakespeare.- You must turn in a copy of what you recite.

3. Shakespeare Party Game Who doesn’t love a good game of pin the tail on the cold-blooded killer?!

- You will create, prepare, and supply the class with a Shakespeare birthday party game. - Your game must be, of course, inspired by and rooted in the text. - You must:

o Provide enough materials for at least four people to play.o Create clear and logical directions o Provide rules

Recipe: Dirt Nap Salad by Savannah C.

Ingredients:

- 6 oz. of muddy earth- ½ cup of milky tears- 12 oz. of fresh sodden ground, tilled

and crushed like the hopes & dreams of the departed

- Tombstone toothpicks for our beloved

Directions:

Layer all ingredients according to nature’s course. Say a prayer for the souls of the departed, and dig in!

Party Day: April 25!