England has always reveled in its drawing-room dramas, from Jane Austen’s social minefields to E.M. Forster’s Howards End to Upstairs, Downstairs — and yes, the blockbuster Downton Abbey. John Lanchester’s brilliant Capital, set on a once-ordinary London block whose housing prices have skyrocketed, has the distinction of being the first brick-and-mortar novel set squarely in our current times.
I, Too, Delete It
Posted by Lizzie on 04/18/07
I know, printing spam poetry is so 1997. But this one–bundled with an ad for Vista (of course it was)–was so much better than anything I have written in the past three years I couldn’t resist. Feel free to Google for lines; we did strike the couplet reading
XI. Franklin’s Last Voyage/XII. The Mystery of the Missing Ships: The Franklin
because it belonged, as many a workshop participant has commented, “to another poem… maybe another poet.” Here goes:
Come, swallows, it’s good-bye.
Archangel Winter, darkness on his back
My only thought is for what has
Your gloved hands covering your lips’ good-bye
Escapees from the cold work of living,
Wheezing ravens, when
This third day of our January thaw,
Preface to the 1970 Edition
Where lamps are lit: these, too,
Columbuses or Gamas, ever pass,
Sculpting each tree to fit your ghostly form
Comes up with as a means to its own end.
Before those virile women!
To follow in the path of their brief blossoming
Down the road, at Cypress Gardens, a woman
In the sound of the snow.
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