April is National Poetry Month, and we got to thinking about an unlikely fit for meter and rhyme: Godzilla. Turns out the beast is a fit for classic forms of poetry, from kaiju haiku to Elizabethan sonnets. As part of a charity auction in 2015, Jo Walton was asked by fellow author Ada Palmer to write a sonnet with the theme “Godzilla vs. Shakespeare.” But, as Walton notes, “people usually ask me for such boring things, and this was such a fun one that I ended up writing a whole bunch of them.”
The first sonnet clearly inspired Walton to insert Godzilla into a number of tales, Shakespearean and otherwise. Subsequent sonnets show us Verona fallen to those massive feet (the Montague/Capulet feud stood no chance), and the kaiju even weeping for Baldur…
Here’s the poem that started everything:
i) Godzilla Vs Shakespeare
Up on the ramparts all await their time
Each heroine, the fools and knaves, each king,
Ready to catch our hearts, the play’s the thing
A cockpit where they arm themselves with rhyme.The monster tries to hide, but shows through plain,
Behind a frond ripped up with giant claws
We see his scaly hide and gaping jaws
As Birnam tropics come to Dunsinane.All rally to defend now, each with each,
Juliet with dagger, Richard on a horse,
Dear Hamlet with his poisoned foil of course,
Harry with swords and longbows, at the breach.Godzilla, shuffling closer, knows what’s what.
Size matters. But then so do prose and plot.
You can read the rest on Walton’s site.
Originally published in April 2015.
This would be fun to watch. Godzilla will destroy the stage.
By the way, if anyone wants this in codex or ebook form, The Godzilla Sonnets are in my new collection Starlings.
Exit, pursued by Godzilla.
Don’t know if you’re aware, but Janis Ian has been posting “Godzilla haiku” (some of which, admittedly, are only marginally Godzillish) for years on her Facebook.
Yes, *that* Janis Ian.
MONSTER NIGHT AT THE MOVIES, Marilynn Byerly
It is a dark and stormy night on the Pacific.
A freighter foghorns into camera range.
A Japanese sailor with bad lip sync smiles
As a huge tentacle slips through the door
And crushed him like a cheap trinket.
I beg to leave but am glued
Like my soft-drinked feet
By a promise to little brother.
Yawning, kids sit scattered like careless popcorn
Waiting to see Tokyo rise like a phoenix
Between one monster movie and the next.
Gargantua the giant gorilla
Calmly munches a screaming policeman
And spits out his uniform like a kernel.
Home safe again, the nine year old
Goes right to bed.
In the distance a truck roars,
A shadow lurks and
The curtains throw shadows.
I spend hours deciding
If my night light attracts monsters.
Fantastic… now I really want someone to write lyrics to Audio Active’s hilarious ska version of Akira Ifukube’s Godzilla March.