It’s time for April’s Craft-a-Poem. Thanks to Sara from Lazy Knits and Purls for hosting this contest. Every month she chooses a random winner who receives a prize of a Ravelry pattern or a Knit Picks gift certificate. I am tickled pink to report that I won for the month of March, and I chose the gift certificate! With the gift cert, I bought a crochet book, of course (like I don’t have enough), and I absolutely love it! Now I have to take the time to browse through it and drool and then work through some of the patterns. Then I can continue on with what I had already started! 

 I finally worked up my 8″ squares for this month using The Unique Sheep Luxe in Light Bark and Spring Pink. These colors were inspired by the Double Cherry blossoms in the backyard of the artist. How wonderful! Be sure you click on the link and look at the photo of the cherry blossoms – they are just beautiful!

The square I designed is called “Blooming Beauty,” and the poem I chose to accompany it is William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 54.  It is in part of Sonnets 1-126, which are called the Fair Youth sonnets.The sonnets were first published together in 1609. 

Sonnet 54

O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.

The canker blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the roses,

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly

When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:

But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo’d, and unrespected fade;

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:

And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

When that shall vade, my verse distills your truth.

–William Shakespeare

This is how the sonnet might read in modern speech:

Oh how much more beautiful beauty is when the truth is told. The rose is pretty but we make it seem even prettier based on its smell. Canker blooms (wild roses) have the same color as the slightly perfumed (crimson or demask) roses which hang on violent thorns that swing about when summer’s wind unveils their disguised buds: but this is all for show, they live unnoticed and disrespected and die alone. Roses do not have this fate, after they die you can still smell them. So even when you die my lovely youth and your beauty fades my words will make your beauty immortal.

Here is my lovely square. I hope you like it. It is full of popcorns and was very fun to make. 

I hope you like my poem for this month. What do you think about it? How do you interpret it? Do you like Shakespeare at all? Let me know your opinion. And above all – Happy Crafting!