![[logo] Crest of the University of Wisconsin-Madison](/images/crest.png)
![[logo] Ask a Librarian](/images/ask.png)
Parallel Press plays bouts-rimés with Fashioned Pleasures
Posted 3/15/2005
MADISON, Wis. — Fashioned Pleasures, the latest chapbook released by Parallel Press, is a collection of 24 sonnets that range in topic from the sea to a stalker's sentencing at trial. The common threads tying them together are the words ending each verse. All 24 poems are bouts-rimés, or poems that incorporate the rhyme words from another poem. The sonnets in Fashioned Pleasures use the rhyme words from Shakespeare's "Sonnet 20."
Since the rhymes are already prescribed, bouts-rimés are challenging for even accomplished poets to pen. As William Thompson, editor of the chapbook, wrote in the foreword, "The usual formal demands already make it difficult enough to write a good sonnet; to write one with the rhyme words chosen in advance is rather like escaping from a straitjacket — with no visible signs of struggle."
The idea for this collection of sonnets struck Stephen Cushman, professor of English at the University of Virginia, when he came across a snapshot of his son playing "dress-up" in someone else's clothes. These new bouts-rimés would "dress up" in the rhyme of another poem. Cushman chose to use the rhymes from "Sonnet 20," appropriately enough since it discusses a man dressing up in the beauty of a woman. Also, some scholars claim the poem indicates the possibility that Shakespeare was homosexual.
Shakespeare's "Sonnet 20" and Cushman's adaptation, "One for the Scrapbook," can be seen below.
The Parallel Press is an imprint of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Fashioned Pleasures is the fourth chapbook to fall into the Et Alia collection of the imprint. For more information, visit http://parallelpress.library.wisc.edu/chapbooks/etalia.
Orders may be sent to:
The Parallel Press
372 Memorial Library
728 State Street
Madison, WI 53706
Phone: (608) 262-2600
E-mail: parallelpress@library.wisc.edu.
Shakespeare's "Sonnet 20"
A woman's face, with nature's own hand painted,
Hast though, the master mistress of my passion—
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gliding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert though first created,
Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure.
Selection from Fashioned Pleasures called, "One for the Scrapbook" by Stephen Cushman
Lips like those, who cares if they're not painted?
And what of it if the red dress shows a passion
For dressing up in Mother's clothes? Well acquainted
With much stranger things, let's enjoy the fashion
Statement a flowered hat makes and quit the rolling
Of our eyes. So he's a boy. Ten? Eleven? One gazes
At the photograph in shock: no use controlling
The love of beauty. Wow. But what amazes
Even more is how — how he has created,
With long white gloves and crossed bare legs, this doting
On his lowered eyes and face in profile, how defeated
All resistance? My son. He came from nothing
In the beginning but pulsings of pleasure.
To think I'd hoped a girl would be my treasure.
