Well Versed: To Shakespeare, Poets, and the Performing Arts

By A LeRoy

Out of Shakespeare's Dream!

"Making the heaven of heavens your dwelling-place,
You stand nearest to God. You brought to birth
The world, the heavens, and the underworld,
All bathed in music..."

With these words, poet and actor Abdiel LeRoy hails his belovèd Shakespeare and sets the stage for his characters to appear.

His lines have echoed in BBC broadcasts from famed actors such as Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, and Judi Dench. His sonnets have appeared in newspapers, literary magazines, and publicity for New York's Lincoln Center. And his verses were commissioned for performance at London's Pentonville Prison.

"O eye of God,
Our myriad-minded Shakespeare, and our pattern
To live or die, we must be free or die
Who speak your language, stuff of muse and thunder..."

But in this collection spanning two decades, LeRoy finds room to praise other poets too, among them Auden, Blake, Dante, and especially John Milton, whose Paradise Lost has inspired his own works of epic poetry.

Finally, LeRoy takes us on a whirlwind ride through the performing arts of four continents, witnessing in spellbound wonder as dancers channel harpies in Beijing, then tumbling to infernal depths with Tango musicians in Buenos Aires.

"Too small my thanks, too dim my muted cheers,
When I have heard the music of the spheres!"

You won't find a living poet today more steeped in the minstrel's tradition, weaving mayhem and mystery, magic and myth, all in verses worthy of the Bard himself!

"For lovers of Shakespeare, fine writing, challenging thoughts, and a wondrous sensitive humor, these poems, and the journeys on which they take us, will become part of the psyche. Outstanding!"
San Francisco Review of Books

• Language: English
• Publisher: Unparagoned
• Release date: Sep 28, 2021

Book preview

Well Versed

Well Versed

To Shakespeare, Poets, and the Performing Arts

A. Le Roy

Unparagoned

Copyright 2001-2019  A. LeRoy

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License Notes

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This book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, resold, licensed, or publicly performed except as permitted in writing by the author. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text is an infringement of the author's rights. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

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Book cover designed by JD&J with stock imagery provided by [Elnur Amikishiyev] © 123RF.com

Contents

Foreword by Bruce Wall

Introduction

To Shakespeare

What Dreams May Come

Tribute of Tributes

The Creator’s Creator

Ode to the Globe

Retrospective

Shakespeare Metaphysics

Entitled

Assaying Hamlet

Distraction

Else Elsinore

MacDeath

Oddfellow

Ode to Titus Andronicus

Ode to Titus Andronicus—II

A Light-Hearted Commentary on Romeo and Juliet

Prologue to Shakespeare's Henry VI—Part III

Interlude to Shakespeare's Henry VI—Part III

Variation on a Theme of England's King Henry VI

King Richard's Bird

Grave Secret

I am Oberon—A Brief History of the Fairy King

Malvolio Mourned

Iambic Pentameter

The Shakespearean Sonnet

Ode to the Sonnet

A Reply to Shakespeare

A Prophecy of Shakespeare

Arid Zona

Epitaph

To Poets

Ezekiel's Vision

Homecoming

Ode to C.S. Lewis

Ode to C.S. Lewis—II

A Poem of Thanks to Walter Zylinski

Remember Me

On a Version of the I Ching by Jorge Luis Borges

Sensation by Arthur Rimbaud

Ode to W.H. Auden

Horizon

Perseverance

Alighieri Avowed

Zell's Hell

Half-Baked

Fluff

Paradiso Precised

Perspective

Beelzebush

Ode to Peter Russell

Drinking Alone Under the Moon by Lĭ Bái

White Plum Blossom by Wáng Miǎn

Farewell, Cambridge by Xú Zhìmó

Ode to Shelley

Po em?

Donne John

1 Kings 19

Ode to Ian Michael Reed

Unto

To Poetry

The English Language

A Poet's Prayer

Bestowal

To the Pharisees of Art

Restoration Comedy

The Bookworm’s Charter

Posthumous

Ode to a Pharisee

Suggestions for a Poet

Audio/Visual

Beaten up!

A Poet's Apology

Butt out!

Time

All Hands on Deck!

On Publication

Launch

On Poetry Submissions

Sour Grapes

Submit

To The Publisher

The Poor Standard

A Treatise on the Trials, Troubles, Travails, and Tribulations of Producing Commentary Articles for Standard & Poor's

Audit

To the Performing Arts

Encendido

Encantado

Ode to the Cuarteto Biraben

Ode to The Little Orchestra Society

Ode to the Vega String Quartet

Ode to the Violiniste

Apple-ation

Ode to Walter Zylinski

Ode to Walter Zylinski—II

Ode to the Moires

Penghao

Elijah (Sample)

Book I

From the Author

Books by A. LeRoy

Epic Poetry

Fiction

Poetry Collections

Non-Fiction

Notes

Foreword by Bruce Wall

I have always believed myself to be a man of faith, yet I could never subscribe to any organised religion. Quite innocently, I was doused with the baptismal waters of my native Church of England long before I was consciously aware that its brand even existed. I was sent to a school defined by its dictates.

But when I questioned what I was being fed, I was informed I was irreverent, insincere, phony; that I mocked and dissembled; that I merely paid lip service, as I toyed with their unctuous ceremony, their sanctimonious ritual; that I was, in a word, glib. And the point was sometimes punctuated with the strap!

Nevertheless, I continued to have faith in something greater than the prosaic hypocrisies shovelled in my direction. I could not, of course, define it—that would be left to the eloquence of such artists as Abdiel—but I knew at heart it existed. Felt it breathe every bit as much as I did.

Later, in adulthood and on another continent, and finding myself in a somewhat uncertain emotional mood, I took a rather rattling lift up to a fourth-floor studio on West 25 th Street in New York City. Its door was a very dirty white, I recall. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here! might as well have been scrawled on its face as far as I was concerned.

Still, curiosity—not killing this particular cat—somehow compelled me forward. It was there I met Abdiel. It was to be, in a moment, life-changing. Indeed, life-defining, although I didn't know it at the time.

In this neglected Manhattan space, people were slinging Shakespeare's wit brightly, they were dashing his rhetoric to and fro, they were riding the virtue of his endless possibilities. And whether they realized them fully, they were at least trying. Shakespeare was to teach me that you get brownie points for just doing that. He held my hand. He thrust me forward.

Yes, I thought. This is it! A different kind of christening, in a different kind of assembly, reverently irreverent, and not afraid to be so. Shakespeare provides such paradox and oh, such glorious music! In Abdiel's own words in this volume:

Making the heaven of heavens your dwelling place,

You stand nearest to God. You brought to birth

The world, the heavens and the underworld,

All bathed in music…

The glory of Shakespeare's language speaks to every occasion, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be. And its spirit sings in Abdiel's verse:

But coming home, we revelers will recall,

With Spirit's fire rooted in heart's enthrall,

The great composer who was all in all.

A decade on from that Shakespearean immersion in New York, I found myself back in England beside the immortal lustre that was Dame Dorothy Tutin. With her, I proudly co-founded the charity, London Shakespeare Workout (LSW), that I still run. It too is a very different type of church, gaining the reputation as a gym for the Bard while taking Shakespeare into British prisons and seeking to promote confidence through the Will to Dream for ALL.

Shakespeare educates posterity

And who is going to argue with the Bard?

Early in this century, we presented a production of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part III at Her Majesty's Prison (HMP) Pentonville with a mix of noted theatrical performers and inmates. We called it, The Wax King. Michael Billington in The Guardian said of it, What is most impressive is the commitment of the entire company and its rare passion for language.

That passion was heightened by Abdiel, who graced us with the Prologue and Interlude for this performance. His language instructed. The men championed such. For them, it defined history.

You had your exit, yet you Death defied,

Your words encapsulating every man.

Over the past 18 years, I have run prison projects with graduating students from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. In the seventeenth year, RADA made this work core to its Bachelor of Arts curriculum. Since then, all the other major UK drama schools have joined the throng. This is in no small part testament to Abdiel's verse.

No better means by message so distilled

To concentrate the wisdom of the ages,

Conveying into consciousness instilled

The muse of fiery minds and witty sages.

Today, we're back inside HMP Pentonville. The prison, like the country, is in crisis. Theatrical productions are no longer possible given extreme staff cuts. Still, we endure, we will not be defeated. We have created a radio-drama company with the inmates. They are determined, and will get their voices out. So, too, will the glory of Abdiel’s verse.

Though not for man to say which soul ascends

Or which goes down, Dante presumes to know,

Perhaps in prophecy the Spirit lends,

Where some of them, beyond the grave, will go.

We're still honoured to celebrate Shakespeare, and his advocate in Abdiel, with the men and women we meet worldwide. Now, 'tis yours to savour!

Bruce Wall

Executive Director

London Shakespeare Workout

Introduction

Among my earliest memories of Shakespeare is when, as a schoolboy, I hoisted a classmate onto my shoulder, laid him on to the teacher's desk, and proceeded to give Mark Antony's funeral oration over the body of Caesar. I was also required to memorize Portia's The Quality of Mercy for a school recital competition. I failed even to make the finals, a pattern that continued throughout my school years with every new poem assigned. And I remember writing long essays on Hamlet.

But it wasn't until much later, around 30 years of age, that I came to really love Shakespeare. It began at an inpatient facility for depression in California. Having role-played a family situation in group therapy and been encouraged by fellow patients to take up acting as a result, I was introduced by an actress friend in New York to a weekly Shakespeare Workout group.

There, my imagination caught fire. The group would annually celebrate Shakespeare's official birthday, Apr. 23, with a 'Shakeathon', in