Ladybird photo © Gabrielle Warr, 2012
This entry is a shameless plug for my newly published poem, 'Northern Line', which appears on the Ink Sweat & Tears blog/e-zine on this link: http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/pages/?p=3509
When I posted the link to the poem on my Facebook page the other day, my artist friend Gabrielle Warr sent me the above picture, which of course went perfectly with the poem. So I asked her if I could add it to this entry and she agreed.
'Northern Line' is my contribution to the mythology of the London Underground. It is also based on something that really happened to me and which later, in my head and heart, became something greater and stranger than the actual event.
I would like to write a whole series of poems on the Underground. It could happen some day.
As for the quotation which gave this entry its title, it is from American poet James Tate.
You must write that whole series of poems on the underground. What a tremendous idea. Now I'm going to the link to read your poem!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yes, I must try to work at it. London has inspired a number of my poems and in a weird way I find the Underground particularly fascinating, if not beguiling. I hope you like the poem.
DeleteCongrats! I really liked the poem, it's so evocative. Even though I love poems about Nature and the "simple life", I'm a city girl at heart and can really relate to poems about the city. How nice that you can find poetry in such a chaotic and not-that-obviously-poetic place like the underground.
ReplyDeleteThere's a Brazilian poet called Manuel Bandeira who also thought poetry is everywhere but that it is hidden. According to him, it's the poet's job to get the poetry out of things and make it into a poem. I totally agree! xx
Thanks Paula, I'm so pleased you liked the poem. The Underground isn't always the most pleasant place when you're constantly commuting on it but it has a lot of scope, I find. There is definitely something mystical about it.
DeleteI love the comment from Manuel Bandeira. It sounds like how Michelangelo felt about sculpture - the works were hidden inside the huge blocks of marble and he just had to dig them out...