2021 Folger Gala

Behind the Scenes

Cyrus Chestnut and Duke Ellington

Watch Cyrus Chestnut introduce his performance of "Father Time" for the 2021 Folger Gala (YouTube)

Listen to Cyrus Chestnut’s “Father Time,” composed for the Folger in 2016 (Spotify)

Duke Ellington's "Such Sweet Thunder"

• Listen to the album on Spotify
• Listen to a Shakespeare Unlimited podcast episode about Duke Ellington and Shakespeare
• Read a Shakespeare & Beyond blog post about Shakespeare and jazz
• Watch Cyrus Chestnut's introduction of his performance of "Star Crossed Lovers" for the 2021 Folger Gala (YouTube)

Explore Shakespeare's Sonnets

Listen to Shakespeare Unlimited podcast episodes about sonnets:

• Inteview with scholar Jane Kingsley Smith: Part 1 and Part 2
• Interview with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's Paul Edmondson

Read Shakespeare's sonnets on The Folger Shakespeare site

See images in the Folger collection of the1609 quarto edition of the sonnets

Take a quiz to see how well you know Sonnet 18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

Poetry Featured in the 2021 Gala

Shakespeare's Sonnets

• Richard Clifford reads Sonnet 29
• Derek Jacobi reads Sonnet 30

Wanda Coleman: American Sonnet #54

dearest cousin,

  forgive this ruined narrative begging the first
element of creation. last time i was here i was here.
now i wonder what, exactly, are the components of my
invisible spectrum? sun-ra rising.

   i went for a reading of palms to rediscover
disappointment. “better an almost-was,” said the gypsy,
”than a never-was.” her peculiar conjure left me staring at
my naked brown feet for hours. when reverie broke it was
near dawn, mist had occluded the volcano and i found
myself old, alone sans shelter from the ever-blessed heat.

   this note is sent perchance you’ve wondered what
befell one adventuresome one solongago lost, this missive
in an empty ron rico bottle set adrift on a sea of flute
music—this repetitious rendering of pain—for on my
one-palm island dwells no such beast as joy

(Callaloo, vol. 19 no. 3, 1996, p. 764. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/cal.1996.0111)

Terrance Hayes: American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin

I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison,
Part panic closet, a little room in a house set aflame.
I lock you in a form that is part music box, part meat
Grinder to separate the song of the bird from the bone.
I lock your persona in a dream-inducing sleeper hold
While your better selves watch from the bleachers.
I make you both gym & crow here. As the crow
You undergo a beautiful catharsis trapped one night
In the shadows of the gym. As the gym, the feel of crow-
Shit dropping to your floors is not unlike the stars
Falling from the pep rally posters on your walls.
I make you a box of darkness with a bird in its heart.
Voltas of acoustics, instinct & metaphor. It is not enough
To love you. It is not enough to want you destroyed.

(“I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison.” American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin, p. 11. Penguin Books, 2018.)

Gala Hispanic Theatre: Readings

https://www.galatheatre.org/

Watch GALA Hispanic Theatre Co-Founder and Producing Artistic Director Hugo Medrano introduce the sonnets of Lope de Vega

Varios efectos del amor
Lope De Vega

Desmayarse, atreverse, estar furioso,
áspero, tierno, liberal, esquivo,
alentado, mortal, difunto, vivo,
leal, traidor, cobarde y animoso,

no hallar fuera del bien centro y reposo,
mostrarse alegre, triste, humilde, altivo,
enojado, valiente, fugitiv,o
satisfecho, ofendido, receloso,

huir el rostro al claro desengaño,
beber veneno por licor suave,
olvidar el provecho, amar el daño,

creer que un cielo en un infierno cabe,
dar la vida y el alma a un desengaño,
esto es amor, quien lo probó lo sabe.

Translation by David Rosenthal: Various Effects of Love

To be fainthearted, to be bold, possessed,
abrasive, tender, open, isolated,
spirited, dying, dead, invigorated,
loyal, treacherous, venturesome, repressed.

Not to find, without your lover, rest.
To seem happy, sad, haughty, understated,
emboldened, fugitive, exasperated,
satisfied, offended, doubt-obsessed.

To face away from disillusionment,
to swallow venom like liqueur, and quell
all thoughts of gain, embracing discontent;

to believe a heaven lies within a hell,
to give your soul to disillusionment;
that’s love, as all who’ve tasted know too well.

Soneto de repente
Lope de Vega
Un soneto me manda hacer Violante
que en mi vida me he visto en tanto aprieto;
catorce versos dicen que es soneto;
burla burlando van los tres delante.

Yo pensé que no hallara consonante,
y estoy a la mitad de otro cuarteto;
mas si me veo en el primer terceto,
no hay cosa en los cuartetos que me espante.

Por el primer terceto voy entrando,
y parece que entré con pie derecho,
pues fin con este verso le voy dando.

Ya estoy en el segundo, y aun sospecho
que voy los trece versos acabando;
contad si son catorce, y está hecho.

(Garrison, David. “English Translations of Lope de Vega's "Soneto de repente."” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Invierno 1995, Vol. 19, No. 2, p. 321.)

Translation by John Frederick Nims: Sonnet Right Off The Bat
She wants a sonnet from me, instantly!
Now here's a jam I wasn't in before!
A sonnet's fourteen lines, I hear - no more,
No less. (I really buffaloed those three!)

You'd think the rimes would have me up a tree,
But here I'm halfway through the second four.
If I can tally two and up the score
The octave's a dead duck. No stopping me!

Well look at Lope entering Line Nine!
I must have knocked it off in nothing flat
And breezed half through the sestet. Doing fine

Nearing the finish. As to where I'm at,
I rather think it's - hmmm - the thirteenth line.
Here's fourteen. Care to count them? And that's that.

Watch GALA Hispanic Theatre Co-Founder and Producing Artistic Director Hugo Medrano introduce Neruda's Romeo y Julieta

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, scene v
William Shakespeare

ROMEO, taking Juliet’s hand
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do.
They pray: grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO
Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, scene iv
Translation by Pablo Neruda

ROMEO (A Julieta).
Si yo profano con mi mano indigna
este santuario, mi castigo es éste:
¡mis labios peregrinos se disponen
a borrar el contacto con un beso!
JULIETA
¡Injusto con tu mano, peregrino
eres, porque ella se mostró devota!
No olvides que los santos tienen manos
y que se tocan una mano y otra
y palma a palma en el sagrado beso
de los romeros en la romería.
ROMEO
¿No tienen labios, santos y romeros?
JULIETA
¡Sólo para rezar, ay, peregrino!
ROMEO
¡Entonces, dulce santa, que los labios
hagan también lo que las manos hacen!
¡Ellos ruegan, concédeles la gracia
y así no desesperen de su fe!
JULIETA
¡Los santos no se mueven, aunque otorguen!
ROMEO
¡Entonces no te muevas, que mis ruegos van a obtener la gracia que esperaban! ¡Ahora por la gracia de tus labios
quedan mis labios libres de pecado!

(Shakespeare, William. Romeo y Julieta/ Romeo And Juliet. Pablo Neruda and Pedro Henríquez Ureña, trans. Losada, 1998. Act 1, scene 5.)