Since January this year, my friend Melissa Lemay, has been publishing her online journal Collaborature. As the name implies, it is a place for collaborative writing and other forms of creativity to thrive. You can find out more about Collaborature and how to submit work here.
Melissa also interviews some of her contributors and I was recently the subject of just such an interview. Amongst the many things we talked about, was our own collaborative project in which we are writing an epic saga called Shipmates. It was inspired by “The Golden Gate”, a novel by Vikram Seth, written entirely in sonnet form in the 1970s. He, in turn, was inspired by Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”, though I only found that out well into the project. We don’t know how far this project will carry on – it will publish in chapters, mostly around seven sonnets each, every two weeks. There follows, the first two verses of Chapter 1…
Shipmates
Whale Struck and Love Struck
1:1
Mid-ocean is a lonely place
But some seek there to sail
The Pacific is the greatest space
But not to run into a whale
As Kate found snoozing in her bunk
She woke to find her whole world sunk
With barely time to don Mae West
And swim out leaving all the rest
Before her precious yacht and home
Dove downwards to Pacific deep
Kate left ringed with flotsam and foam
She searches but finds nought to keep
Some way off the whale’s spout she espies
And though a tough cookie, Kate just cries…
1:2
Alas, the salt, it dries her skin
And oil it overcompensates
Causing blotches, discoloration
And what of it if true love waits
O’er yonder past the waterspout?
She thinks perhaps a whale to mount
Could be an achievable task
Should she calculate around the blast
Choose wisely time to take the reins
Lest end up shot to Port of Spain
Though, admittedly wouldn’t be so bad
A holiday in the Caribbean
Kate snaps back to reality
In just the nick of time to see…