The Bard Review (Issue 1)

The Bard Review

A Literary Journal for Sonnets and Monologues

TheBardReview is a literary arts publication from the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is a resident ensemble theatre company bringing Shakespeare and the Classics to life for all.

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A Sestina in a Hallway

Mark J. Mitchell

I’ve got the bag, take these keys And empty all the change

Out of your pockets. Leave it here On the nightstand. You won’t Need it. Leave the book, you’ll never Finish it. Ready? Let’s go. It doesn’t matter much when we go But leaving is the key

To the whole mess. You’ll never Be able to make this change

If you stay. You know you won’t. Besides, what are you leaving here?

Old books, a bed, a man who hears Voices telling him not to let you go? You’re leaving nothing. Take the keys, Lock the door behind you and don’t Even pretend that you can change Anything here. Most people never

Learn. Come on, let’s get moving or you’ll never Get out of this house, Look, here, See, the door’s locked. Besides, he’ll change Locks once you’re out. Three days ago He went out so see someone. He took all his keys. Someone’s leaving here. He will if you won’t.

I can wait as long as you. I won’t Let you stay here. You’re my sister. I’d never Leave you alone. Please, just take my house keys. We’ve got a bed for you. You can come back here Later if you want, but right now let’s go. Leave your ring behind. That’s fair exchange.

He can hock it and you’ll feel the change Right there on your hand. You know he won’t Starve on his own. He has somewhere to go. Hell, he’s already there. He may never Drag his sorry carcass all the way back here. I’m sorry. He’s fine. I didn’t mean it. Turn the key

And everything will change. He’ll never Find you. No, he won’t. Take my hankie, here, Blow. Please, let’s just go. I’m begging. Turn that key.

Les Adieux

Askold Skalsky

The city pavements rise to crowd the autumn out. I see a few leaves at the edges of my stare. Befuddled, I am scarred under the moon that strews the sidewalk with its phantom light. My wife appears, long gone with smiles and breathless wonders that she wields so well, and hands me a note. I gawk, something about leaving, and some names I don’t recognize. What’s this? I ask, a thousand miles away. It will be the longest separation we will

ever know, not having seen each other much these 20 years or so. She has come to say goodbye, I think, while I’m already done with parting and I blink. This is the way great losses start, the extrication of a last forgotten intimate part by all who wait

for nightfall in their rooms, turning on lamplights while they sleep, the body slowly emptying its breath, beside, beneath.

How Grandmother Tells It

Emily Rose Cole

You know our tale: how, against advice, the girl (alone) strays from the path that’s meted out for her to sip a pearl of honeysuckle, talk to a stranger.

She risks too much, the moral tells us. She shouldn’t go. It’s dangerous (for girls) in the dark wood. I know

(don’t you?) what fate squats in that bed rough fur, eyes bright as fraying wire, canines capped in red it’s only when (somewhere in act two) the axman’s

grinning blade portends rescue that she survives: humbled, grateful, traumatized enough to know not to go out but to stay in, latched to the safety of the cradle,

the kitchen. (Postscript she’ll take the axman’s trade: her hood for a gold ring.) After, we kiss our sleepy granddaughters, as if a kiss has ever spared a girl from anything.

Dark Lady

Brianna Miller

I hope to never be your dark lady. I love, hate, admire, admonish you; The bard so full of creativity

Who never thought he could write of me too. I am dancing on the grave you roll in, Wishing the pedestal I placed you on Were a phoenix that could begin again, Molding me as a player, not a pawn; No longer scared of your steely white gaze

Peering down from an ivory tower.

You may think I’m too brown for a fair praise

But I know you’re too dead to hold power.

So I steal your voice like you did your plots; Prove me and mine are more than afterthoughts.

Hidden Premise

Thalia Williamson

She said I’m just trying to understand I don’t want you to think I am bad that I have bad intentions I’m asking because I’m trying to understand because I’m a woman and as a woman having lived as a woman being told I’m too bossy being called a bossy boots believe it or not and don’t get me wrong I love being a woman I think it’s great being a woman but if someone said you could live as a man well I’d think wouldn’t that be nice to get what men get so what I’m trying to understand and please don’t think I’m making any assumptions there are no assumptions behind my question it’s just a question

I have to be able to ask questions but to put it simply why is what I’m asking when you have it so good why and I really hope you won’t have me wrong in this this is just about me understanding about trying to understand about getting to know you better because I care about you so what I want to know is why and again remember I love being a woman I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all to be a woman I’m a feminist after all of course aren't we all nowadays but why

I want to know for someone like you would you want I mean choose

I mean you have the choice to keep all the benefits so why would you choose Dan

I mean Robin you have to forgive me

I’ll keep getting it wrong

I don’t want you to be mad at me

I’m asking Why would you choose To live as a

Green-Eyed Monster

Mike Wilson

I hate you for having something I don’t, even though I don’t much want what you have, hate my ungenerosity that won’t rejoice in your blessings. Where is the salve to soothe this urge to destroy what glitters in your hand? This hole in my heart, champagne of conceit, hard cocktail of sweet bitters blessed with a wicked kick knifing my brain, crossing my eyes, birthing a ball of snakes in my belly, vile bile, corkscrew twisted by my own fisted fury. For God’s sake! Who knew, in me, such villainy existed? But then, sprouting from frontal vanity a seed that swallows greed – humility.

Gaia Vindicata

Jay Arns

’Tis said that Gaia groaned beneath man’s weight, and Zeus in pity planned for her relief. He sought to fan the flames of inborn hate, the conflagration passing all belief. In this affray, man’s number would decrease as Greeks and Trojans bore the will of Zeus, and neither man nor land would be at peace ’til souls from broken bodies were set loose. The heroes fell for Helen on that field, enforcing Sparta’s king’s connubial right; these men were burned while o’er them thunder pealed as each was dealt his share of endless night. And on both sides so many died at length the Titans’ mother felt her former strength.

This Old Art

Jack Granath

I toe the brink of the designer baby And drop another sonnet anyway. Their poetry will be bright math or maybe Bridges, banks, vaccines, and rising pay. They will be cured of needing this old art (And do indeed their forebears need it now?), Though they may take up tearing it apart. I drop another sonnet anyhow.

The cool kid sells himself as he recites His cool-kid poems, and the crowd agrees. He crows, he does a touchdown strut, he writes If that old word should still apply to please. I look at him. We’re doomed, and I don’t care. I drop another sonnet in the air.

Blue Butterfly Dreams

Emma Datson

Butterflies are floating, everywhere now, Summer is upon us, and they’ve arrived, Their beauty astounds, nature take a bow, So sad to think, they are so short alive.

Whenever a butterfly comes, floats nearby, It brings a wistful smile, and heartfelt sigh, So that it appears, I may start to cry, But it is just wonder, escaping high.

The sun is blazing, small waves are crashing, Ferries and strangers, pass without a look, As butterflies are still close by, floating, As I write upon this, my secret book.

I am dreaming, my blue butterfly dreams, Whilst the blue summer beyond me, just gleams.

Sonnet for Tom Clancy

Erica Reid

I knewthat it was you. The double-cross! Of course, at first I didn’t know. I thought you were my comrade/lover/brother/boss I trusted you with [macguffin]. Then you shot me in the leg to throw them off the trail or so you said, but in your dossier you had another name. Now I’m in jail again, prepared to shank and box my way to freedom, to our final confrontation inside a sinking car or burning train. I’ll leave my badge, my gun, the whole damn station and spend my days umbrella-less in rain to brood about the ones I couldn’t save and lay a rose upon my daughter’s grave.

Sea Walk

Smitha Sehgal

all summer we spent in glee by the brook that sprung from lake of the abandoned moon that melted into the earth, night took nothing in return but simply glimmered on banks, its white sands lay open like shore, growing under mango trees and wild thorn that put forth a flesh-colored flower, one thought snakes slithered past slow, leaving a pattern-

on such nights, we walked close up to the sea, dark waves rose high and crashed into light wondering about the silver fish we had seen earlier in the day swimming past

the sea stretched for miles, along the coastal night a long-lost companion, of ships and port

Soar Spot

Allison Fradkin

At rise, WILLONA (female-identifying, open age, open ethnicity) inhabits a vacant beach.

You know something? I got sand. That’s why I came to the beach. I heard they were running low. Speaking of hearing things, I wish I had some tunes. That tribute to transformation, “I Am Changing,” would really hit the spot right now. Well, not the sorespot.

But I don’t mind listening to the sound of my own voice. I never really noticed it before, but it’s…present. Pleasant. Much more mellifluous than something off of your Greatest Hits album, which includes such scintillating singles as “Diss You Much,” “Proud Marry in Haste, Repent at Leisure,” and the pièce de no résistance, “You Can’t Stop the Beatdown.”

Except I can. I did. I stopped the beatdown. You knew my motto: Batterer up, three strikes I’m out. You’ll never have the pleasure of seeing me cry anymore. Or the pain of seeing me smile. In fact, you won’t see me any kind of way, ever again.

See, you thought our song went: (sings, to the tune of “My Guy” by Mary Wells) I’m tellin’ you from the start / I can’t be torn apart from my guy. (speaking) But see, that is unapologetically uninspiring. So on my album, which I’m calling The Very Best of Willona, the song goes (sings, to the tune of “My Guy” by Mary Wells) I’m tellin’ you from the start / I can’t be torn apart bymy guy.

Now, I know the first time leaving is the hardest first is the worst and all that but once you go black-and-blue, you I never go back. So you might think that this is one of those “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” initiatives, that they call it escapism because it’s nothing but a fantasy. But I know something you don’t: I can take the y off “emergency” and put an ethere instead, and then I’ve earned a resurgence of emergence.

Words to live by. Which is why I’m going to beat the odds my first time out. Well, maybe not beat ’em, but “overcome” just sounds so underwhelming. I got guts for days. Weeks, months, and beyond.

I can’t take all the credit for my courage though. Got to give gratitude to Sofia from The Color Purple, not The Golden Girls. Her song “Hell No,” about refusing to be cruising for a bruising, is what got me to make tracks in the first place. A person hears something often enough, she starts to believe it. She starts to repeat it. Out loud. I’d croon, you’d cringe and criticize: “I know why the caged bird sings. She’s a Maya Ange-loser. Come on now, don’t pout, Willona. You know I’m only teasing, and still I get a rise out of you.”

And what did I ever get out of you? Nothing but another bouquet of your sorry-not-sorry-ass flowers, the kind perfect for playing that time-honored game of “He Shoves Me, He Shoves Me Not.” That’s right I’m playing games withoutyou, and guess what? I can identify ’em. None of that baseless accusation B.S. What games was I ever playing with you, huh? Trouble?Aggravation? PacMan?

Well, since you neglected to specify, I picked my own game to play: Pack-Your-Bags-and-Leave-ThatMan, where every woman’s a winner. Let’s tell ’em what we’ve won, ladies. (sings, to the tune of “He’s Got the Power” by The Exciters) He’s got no power / No power no more / Over me. (speaking) Formerly sung by The Exciters, presently sung by The Exiters. Ugh, when did I get so infuriatingly inspirational?

When I realized that I am the wind beneath my own uncaged wings.

When I realized that where there’s a Will[ona], there’s a way out.

When I realized that underneath the coat of war paint I applied to the bruises was a brave face just waiting to be put on.

Someday, even when those bruises are gone but not forgotten, they’ll still be souvenirs of survival, and they’ll still be a sore spot with me.

But now that I’m no longer under your skin, your thumb, or your spell, I can spell that word a little differently: s-o-a-r.

Hell yes.

Judith, Deliver Us

Hannah Gregory

JUDITH: When our kin came here, so many years ago, they dug their heels into the ground. It was a long journey. Oh, it was arduous. How many died along the way? How many bodies left at the side of the road, a simple keening, muted and hushed in fear, before turning away in the dark? Move along now. Can’t stop now. And their legs were strong in the way that you must be strong or else. Through hills, through valleys, while terror skittered up their backs, hovered in front of their eyes. Uphill, uphill, uphill with the pants of labor, the sweat of fear.

Oh, and when they arrived, when the land leveled out, they looked down on what they saw and they broke into cries so guttural it could split a person right in two. Do you hear the sound there? Of relief? Do you hear that shallow breath turn deep and full? Oh, take a breath, my sister. My brother. My friend.

And they made a plan, they built a life, they turned this spit of land into paradise. Don’tforgettolook overyourshouldereveryonceinawhile, they said. Oh, and we laughed, us children, who had never known fear, never known the carnal lusts of an enemy. Lookoveryourshoulder, they said, voices thin with age, carried away on the wind.

Look,says a small child, peering over the hill, lookatthoselittleants And with one swift motion, a land once tucked away, once shrouded in secret, opens its eyes from a long long sleep that it was warned never to take. Look, here they come. Here they come.

And how will they breach us? Our soft hands, our warm hearts; their calloused palms, their cold cold muscle. How will we keep our peace? Ah, now we know why wars are fought. Now we make our armor, now we sharpen our blades, now we hold our claim, steeling our skin for the monster at our backs.

The Smoldering Hearth

R. Graham Rogers

Mom’s old doctor made a clerical mistake and sent me her withstanding bill instead of you. Yeah, her “old” doctor. When I saw she stopped being treated there six months ago, I got curious. He referred me to the new doctor, who then sent me her withstanding bill there too. Funny thing was, she's been on the same diuretic that kept her in the hospital for two weeks a few years ago. Remember when we said last rights a few years ago? And since she changed doctors and went back on old medicine that made things worse because you weren’t “happy with her progress,” I’m getting her house and moving my family to Nantucket. But, if you want it, our house in Dorchester is yours. If you still want to move to Europe, you can do it on your own dime. You gave me a gift, you know. I’ve never properly thanked you. I got to watch you go first so for the first twenty five years of my life I made her happy. For the rest of my life, I decided to make myself happy. But you, with your frat boy youth and dramatic departure from the church, traded your happy in for a paycheck because you never learned how to be good enough on your own. Because in all your time alone, you never learned that the person you are might be an acceptable person to share with the world despite what mom and dad endlessly taught you. Anyways, thanks for teaching me that. But, your times up, brother. Your dream is over: the funeral procession begins, and after that, it's just an urn on a hearth. So, what’ll it be, Dorchester or prison?

Contributors

Jay Arns

Jay S. Arns is a doctoral candidate in rhetoric and composition at the University of Cincinnati, where his research focuses on the rhetoric of science, visual rhetoric, affect theory, conspiracy theories, and film studies.

Emily Rose Cole

Emily Rose Cole is the author of Thunderhead, a collection recently released from University of Wisconsin Press, and Love & a Loaded Gun, a chapbook of persona poems in women's voices from Minerva Rising Press. Her poetry has appeared in American Life in Poetry, Best New Poets 2018, Poet Lore, and the Los Angeles Review, among others. She holds an MFA in poetry from Southern Illinois University and a PhD in poetry with an emphasis in Disability Studies from the University of Cincinnati.

Emma Datson

Emma Datson is a 40ish medically interesting, emerging Australian poet and writer, who is beginning to use her voice. She grew up in Outback Australia, then spent 20+ years in Canberra, and now calls Brisbane home. Emma relaxes by walking along the Brisbane River, spending time with her pets Umbra the black cat and Princess the pug, friends and loved ones. But most of all Emma loves to read a good book. Read her work online at vocal.media/authors/emma-datson

Allison Fradkin

Scriptly speaking, Allison Fradkin (she/her) creates satirically scintillating plays and monologues that (sur)pass the Bechdel Test and enlist their characters in a caricature of the idiocies and intricacies of insidious isms. An enthusiast of inclusivity and accessibility, Fradkin freelances for her hometown of Chicago as Literary Manager of Violet Surprise Theatre, curating new works by queer playwrights; and as Dramatist for Special Gifts Theatre, adapting scripts for actors of all abilities.

Jack Granath

Jack Granath’s poetry has appeared in Poetry East, Rattle, and North American Review among other journals and magazines. He is a library director in Kansas. Learn more about him at jackgranath.com.

Hannah Gregory

Hannah Gregory (she/her) is a playwright, actor, and songwriter based in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is the writer of three award-winning Cincinnati Fringe Festival shows, including Wuthering: a musical on the moors (Critic's Pick, 2022); The Belle and Boone Helm (Critic's Pick, 2021); and Descent: a Murder Ballad (Producer's Pick, 2019). She has also produced multiple short plays as part of Know Theatre's Serials programming. Her poetry has been published in Tidelines, a community zine project from Cereal Box Studio and Wave Pool Gallery. She is a proud 2019 recipient of the Artist Enrichment grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. You can stay up-to-date on her writing projects on Instagram: @hmgwritesthings.

Brianna Miller

Brianna Miller is an actress who has worked with Cincinnati Shakespeare Company for two seasons. A reading of her play, FAULT, was hosted by First Take Co. in August 2022. When Brianna first experienced Shakespeare, she was wary of the inaccessibility of the language. She has since discovered an interest in recreating classics in a way that is both relatable and accepting of all groups of people.

Mark J. Mitchell

Mark J. Mitchell has worked in hospital kitchens, fast food, retail wine and spirits, conventions, tourism, and warehouses. He has also been a working poet for almost 50 years. An award-winning poet, he is the author of five full-length poetry collections, and six chapbooks. His latest collection is Something To Be from Pski’s Porch Publishing. He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka, Dante, and his wife, activist and documentarian Joan Juster. He lives in San Francisco, where he makes his marginal living pointing out pretty things.

Erica Reid

Erica Reid (she/her) earned her MFA at Western Colorado University and serves as assistant editor at THINK Journal. In 2022 she was nominated for Best New Poets; in 2021 her poetry won the Yellowwood Poetry Prize and the Helen Schaible Sonnet Contest (Modern Sonnets category), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and was commissioned by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. ericareidpoet.com

R. Graham Rogers

Graham is an off-Broadway produced playwright based out of Cincinnati. His work has been produced at the Cincy Fringe and the Know Theatre locally, as well as in Florida, Tennessee, and virtually. Graham graduated from CCM in 2019 with a BFA in Acting and has been seen around local stages for the better part of the last seven years. Outside of the theatre, Graham is a yoga teacher and mindfulness facilitator.

Smitha Sehgal

Smitha Sehgal is a legal professional and poet who writes in two languages-English and Malayalam. Her poems have been featured in contemporary literary publications such as Ink Sweat & Tears, Panoply, Marrow Magazine, Exist Otherwise, The Indianapolis Review and elsewhere.

Askold Skalsky

Originally from Ukraine, Askold Skalsky is a former college professor living in Frederick, Maryland. His poems have appeared in the USA as well as in literary publications in Europe, Canada, Australia, and India, in a number of magazines and online journals including Notre Dame Review, Southern Poetry Review, The English Chicago Review, Tellus, and Poetry Salzburg Review. A first collection, The Ponies of Chuang Tzu, was published in 2011 by Horizon Tracts in New York City.

Mike Wilson

Mike Wilson is author of Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic, (Rabbit House Press, 2020), political poetry for a post-truth world. He’s a past winner of Kentucky State Poetry Society’s Chaffin/Kash Prize. His work has appeared in many small magazines, including Amsterdam Quarterly, Mud Season Review, The London Reader, and The Ocotillo Review. Mike lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

Thalia Williamson

Thalia Williamson is a British author based in Los Angeles. She is currently completing an MFA in Creative Writing at UCR and will soon begin a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at USC. She is the author of a memoir, Things Bad Begun, and is at work on another, The Silent Part. Her work has been published in The Audacity and Longreads. An excerpt of The Silent Part is forthcoming in Joyland. She is a Tin House Scholar, and she is trans.

Masthead

Producing Artistic Director

Brian Isaac Phillips

Editor-in-Chief

Kyrié Owen

Managing Editor

Jeanna Vella

Monologue Editors

Lettie Van Hemert

Brian Isaac Phillips

Sonnet Editors

Sara Clark

Candice Handy

Patricia Ryan

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company Staff

Brian Isaac Phillips, Producing Artistic Director

Production:

Kate Bindus, Production Manager

Brenna Bishop, Resident Stage Manager

Rainy Edwards, Resident Costume Designer

Jared Earland, Interim Lighting and Scenic Associate

Chris Holloway, Technical Director

Drew Homan, Master Carpenter

Lindsey Jones, Costume Shop Manager

Emily Kemmerer, Wardrobe Supervisor

Samantha Reno, Resident Scenic Designer

Robert Carlton Stimmel, Technical Director

Cole Sweasy, Assistant Stage Manager

Kara Eble Trusty, Props Supervisor

Administration:

Sara Clark, Director of Development

Colleen Dougherty, Education Associate

Shelby Flynn, Operations Manager

Candice Handy, Director of Education

Rachel Woellner, Front of House Manager

Justin McCombs, Company Manager

Kyrié Owen, Communications and Engagement Manager

Patricia Ryan, Development Associate

Lettie Van Hemert, General Manager

Jeanna Vella, Director of Marketing and Data Analytics