A Midsummer's Night Dream in Four Stanzas
Ellaheh Gohari
Ellaheh Gohari
Lysander and Hermia in sheer bliss,
If only they could share a single kiss.
Banned from marrying by father dearest,
In favor of the man Demetrius.
Poor Helena wants to keep them apart,
Demetrius has the key to her heart.
Straight into the forest, the lovebirds run,
See actors putting on a play for fun.
Two fairies disagree and start a fight,
Oberon and Puck make a curse at night.
Put a potion on Titania’s eyes,
The first person she sees will be idolized.
Demetrius can’t stand Helena’s love,
But she isn’t easy to get rid of.
Oberon and Puck hatch a plan,
Love potion makes Demetrius her man.
A mistake by Puck curses the wrong boy,
It’s Lysander who looks at her feeling coy.
Helena thinks this is all some cruel joke,
But love from the heart can never be cloaked.
Titania falls for changeling Bottom,
Little does she know there is a problem.
All the fairies disapprove the notion,
Not real love when it comes from a potion.
Bottom’s face has turned into an ass,
No really, it’s true, I’m not being crass!
To Titania it doesn’t matter,
To her, Bottom is the perfect actor.
Lysander is still misguided in love,
The potion’s hold is hard to get rid of.
Oberon realizes Puck’s dumb mistake,
He must make this right before it’s too late!
Poor Bottom is stuck in a donkey head,
Titania loves him and wants to wed.
King Oberon finally breaks the spell,
The sight of Bottom makes her want to yell.
Egeus discovers the group fast asleep,
All of them think it was only a dream.
Demetrius’s love melted away,
With Helena, his heart won’t go astray.
Two perfect couples are happy at last,
With no recollection of events past.
The long play ends with a bergomask dance,
And everyone finally found romance.
Grade: 9
Bio: Ella Gohari is an aspiring writer and poetry enthusiast. She works as the features editor on the Patriot Post staff, where she also writes articles, and has been doing science research with Ms. Joykutty for 3 years. In her free time she likes watching the news and participating in political forums.
What motivated you to write this piece?
Many of the poems in "My Soul to Take" were inspired by writing prompts given to me by Ms. Adams, my creative writing teacher. I've heard that people think writing prompts are somehow inauthentic or basic, but I disagree. There are so many ways you can take a prompt, and no two works derived from a prompt will be the same. I think writing prompts are a great way to get those creative juices flowing.
Do you write sporadically or regularly?
I like to write fairly regularly. Being on the newspaper staff, I write multiple articles a month, but creative writing is a whole other ballgame. It's hard to balance school and fun sometimes, but I always make it a point to sit down and write something creatively once a week.
What was the most difficult part of your writing process for this work?
When writing poetry, I find that I automatically gravitate to end rhymes. That means the words came naturally for my three rhyming poems, "March-tober," "A Midsummer's Night Dream in Four Stanzas," and "The Virus of 2020" (which was in my poet laureate collection). However, when it came to the other 4 poems in the "My Soul to Take" collection, it was difficult not to rhyme. Poet Laureate also requires 5 different styles of poetry, so I had to branch out and write poems I normally wouldn't have.
What is your ideal writing environment?
My ideal writing environment is honestly nothing special. As long as I'm sitting down and have a keyboard in front of me, I'll be able to write. I curated a Spotify playlist that helps me focus and put my thoughts onto paper, so as long as I'm not bothering anyone I'll normally play that.