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

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

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