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The Sonnets of Christopher Whitby
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Exfoliation: 37 original monologue sonnets, one
for a character in each play in Shakespeare's First Folio, plus Pericles, performed by a small cast on YouTube viewable at
Exfoliation Playlist.Texts of the 37 sonnets and few extra are downloadable at
Exfoliation Texts.
Making Chaucer Easy parts 1 & 2: a couple of videos on YouTube aimed at helping students overcome perceived difficulties with the language of Middle English (and maybe have a little fun too,
trying different accents). Making Chaucer Easy.
12 Elizabethan Sonnets: Well they are Elizabethan in that they were written about and for someone called Elizabeth. They have been performed interspersed with live music as a words and music concert called 'Letting Go'.
To find the sonnets as a pdf with links to the music as performed on YouTube by various artists, so giving a sense of what the concert was like, visit
12 Elizabethan Sonnets.
NB Unavoidably in a pdf the links open in the same browser window as the pdf so you will have to use the browser back button to return to the sonnets after a piece of music.
Alternatively you can Right Click (Windows) or Cntrl Click (Macintosh) the link to be given a choice of opening in a new tab or window.
Now some other sonnets. |
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Check-Up
I am OK. No, really, life's a blast,
if that's what you still say these days. It's true
I do forget some things. The distant past
is clear as I could wish. It's just what's new,
what happened yesterday, last week, that's where
I come adrift, but is that any more
than simple ageing, all the wear and tear
of burning candles at both ends? I'm sure
it's nothing. Though there is... one tiny doubt.
You see, it's when I wake I don't recall,
some days, my leaving such a mess, clothes out,
the window open, marks along the wall.
And in my mouth a little blood. All fine,
but here's the thing. It doesn't taste like mine.
[Nemerov Award finalist 2009, first published in Measure Vol V 2010]
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Old Flame
For God's sake, Peter, look at me. Do I
still own the face you loved? I'm forty-two,
with children of my own. I don't know why
you've come... Oh no, oh not for them... If you
so much as dream of that, you can fu— fly
off back to Neverland for good. Make do
with what you've got — eternal youth. Just try
to come to terms with it. Just think it through.
I'm sorry, I'm not meaning to be rude
but face it, we were always worlds apart.
There is no meeting point. You just delude
yourself to think I'd keep you in my heart.
If all our thoughts were wishes, we'd still not make them rhyme.
Not growing up's your penance. Doing so is mine.
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Scafell Pike
Half way, we questioned whether to go on
and then again, ten minutes from the top,
much less in doubt than to reaffirm the need
within was stronger than the hurtling sleet
that sliced our cheeks, froze lips and closed our eyes.
Bent double, old beggars under sacks indeed,
we pivoted our coming and our going
on outstretched fingers brushing ice-rimed cairn.
When steaming gently in the heated car
we asked once more why on earth we did this,
we knew our answers would not be the same.
For me, remembering turning back from other goals,
I know no better spur to my intent
than because I am here.
[2nd Prize in a BBC Radio 4 short poem competition 1991,
also published in Orogenic Zones ed. Gifford & Smith
(International Festival of Mountaineering Literature) 1994]
Now dedicated to Bill Parkhouse who is no longer here but was there.
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Divining Water
I tried it once at school, this savage art,
with country friends and twigs untimely ripped
from hedges by the road. Tight fisted and tight lipped
they swore they were real hazel, and we stripped
the bark from some for scientific test
of which configuration worked the best –
no thought that we might fail. In line abreast
close by a gurgling drain we made our start.
Yet only I was made to feel the wood spring back
and buck against the pressure of my grip.
I laughed and said it was a joke, a slip,
and tried to hold it nonchalantly slack.
I mock it still, but with each year that comes
I learn to dread the pricking of my thumbs.
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Night Exercise
The night the soldiers came for him they had
their guns of course, but one bright soul had thought
to bring a spade, for if their man became
a frigging pain, they might perhaps be glad
of it when all the fun was gone. They caught
him in his bed, quite unaware his name
had been passed on by someone he'd once met.
There was, tonight, no time to rape his wife,
so where the wood curls round the valley's head
the questioning was rifle-butt hard. 'Now
dig,' they said at last, but with no hope of life,
he would not help them. So they shot him dead,
and dug, and covered him, and trod him down,
and hated him, because he'd made them sweat.
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Lunacy
Among the frogs that friggle in our pond
there may well be a prince or two entranced
in a career break, and on the lake beyond,
perhaps a princess flapped her wings, then danced
again last night before she slipped away,
serene above and furious underneath.
And who can tell that for the length of one bright day
a whole new village won't adorn the heath.
Why not? For if imagination wills,
the mountains ought to move, and tales like these
beat in the blood. The reasoning that kills
our fears may hide the woods among the trees.
I only know that, as the sun sinks down,
I hear the wolves howl at the edge of town.
[First published in Blood Line, Blinking Eye Publishing 2007]
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Cinders
To tell the truth, I tried quite hard to kick
the other one off, as I bolted free
to save my shame. I made it in the nick
of time, but, oh, my feet were killing me!
Glass slippers...for a ball! Who dreamed up that?
A long walk back as well, always in doubt
I'd beat the sisters home. Yet there I sat,
as if nothing had happened while they'd been out.
And then at last he came. You know the rest.
Except you don't. I have exchanged one cage
for another. Bigger, yes, but now I wage
small wars with courtiers over each request
and bound by protocol against my will,
I weep to find myself in service still.
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Reading the Leaves 1916
The next few hours remain a mystery,
but if you had the time for just one book,
what would it be? A fiction I assume.
Under the circumstances history
appears quite futile and religion plies
a dying trade. Yet could you bear to look
inside some novels now? We may presume
henceforth the comedy of manners lies
in no man’s land. A play? But we have Lears
aplenty. So when all comes down to chance
is poetry what’s left to mask our fears?
How many Palgraves deck the mud of France?
The whistles blow. Good luck. Wish me the same,
and if we meet again... I’ll ask your name.
Thank you for reading.
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