Friday, 11 June 2010

78. A Foray into Poetry

I don't do poetry. It was ruined for me by school - all that Seamus Heaney and John Donne. My parent does poetry - she's proper. I tease her about it.

I do poetry secretly. I know my way round Keats, and sometimes I read Wilfred Owen for the beautiful ghastly pain of it. I can't stand Andrew Motion, but I've got time for Ms. Duffy, and Fleur Adcock is always worth reading. Then, in the way of these things, I discover a novel-length book of connected sonnets by a poet well known in the States but not here. It takes me ages to track the book down and have it sent, and longer for it to arrive. But today I sit at my desk and read and it's as if my brain is bilingual. Poetry and Prose.

It's an extraordinary book (no names. not going to tell.)

I still don't do poetry.

Shh.

1 comment:

  1. that's because you are super clever and very literary. luckily you like films too, so that must be how come we are friends. you should join my mum's book club - they are always doing poetry and it makes her despair. they last did tales of ovid and a duffy thingy. i like pam ayers. who (pam) by the way, is really into sea shanties.

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