I’m excited to be part of D. Gilson’s Out of Sequence: The Sonnets Remixed project, which is best described in his editorial words as “154 people responding to each of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in 39,854 words; 23 pictures; 2 songs; and a one act play.” You can read his full introduction to the project here.
I chose to respond to the infamous Sonnet 126, the sonnet that is “missing” its final couplet and is only 12 lines long instead of the requisite 14. There are many theories as to whether this was intentional. Some editions of Shakespeare’s sonnets have two bracketed lines indicating the empty space (a publisher’s decision). Some note that the sonnet in its truest form, a little song, didn’t have to be 14 lines. I like to imagine the beloved boy’s silent reply in those final two lines, and took that as a bit of a starting point for my remix effort, which you can read here.
Check out all the remixed sonnets in Upstart: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies. They will also be collected in a print anthology due out later this year.
