April is National Poetry Month. Not only that, it’s the BIRTHDAY month of the great English poet and playwright, William Shakespeare. For me, it means ADOPTING SHAKESPEARE- HIS LANGUAGE, HIS PLAYS, HIS SONNETS, and you’re invited to join in. This week, the Sweet Swan of Avon (who lived from April 23, 1564-April 23, 1616) turns 459! To celebrate Shakespeare’s Birthday, please send favorite quotations to elaine.coleman2013@gmail.com, thereby entering my annual Shakespeare contest. Also, tweet them, using my twitter name @TheGoodbyeBaby. Quotation competition takes place during the remainder of April. The prize, my two suspense novels (Beast of Bengal and All the Wrong Places, will be sent to the top contributor via snail mail. Past winners include poet/memoirist Luanne Castle (@writersitetweet). To honor Shakespeare and celebrate poetry month, read Sonnet 18 aloud to someone you love.
William Shakespeare
SONNET 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The contest ends May 10, after which my novels will be sent to the top contributor. So, as the song goes, “Brush up on your Shakespeare…start quoting him now!”
Join Elaine each month for musings on adoption and life.
The Goodbye Baby 
Well, April with its poetry, its bard, and being the cruelest month is now over. Let’s hope May is going to be a good one!