Saturday 10 December 2016

Otherwise mint

I don't write much poetry because I'm no good at it. But here's a little something I perpetrated which, I believe, offers to the world a minor innovation. Has anybody else used highlighter in a poem before?



Otherwise Mint 


Eliot's Selected for two quid
Picked up in Oxfam, Muswell Hill
With biro marginalia  
(Pages 3 to 11)
Crammed in tiny caps, some sideways
That took me back to school,
Wondering then, and now, how Faber miss the trick
Of making space enough for annotation
By learners on the brink of English Lit.

HE DIGRESSES HERE BECAUSE OF SMELL 

ADMITION OF NIGHTS IN CHEAPHOTELS

HISSTRUGGLE IS INSIGNIFICANT

'And should I then presume?'
'And how should I begin?'        

QUESTIONING HERE!!!

'A thing with claws'  [circled, with an arrow]

POSS. CRABS??? NOT EVEN IDETIFYING THE CREATURE
ARGUABLE CLIMAX OF POEM!

HISSTRUGGLE IS INSIGNIFICANT - NEVER A STRENGTH OF HOPE
         
          LAZARUS COME FROM DED BY JESUS

BUT IRONIC AS HE HAS NONE [Hope, that is]

EVEN IF HE HAD HIS YOUTH WD IT MAKE A DIF?

      HE COULD OF RISKED EVERTHING!!!

HEROSTATUS?

Then last of all there's one word:underlined

BLEAK.

Prufrock formulated, sprawling on a pen.
The other pages all unmarked,
Though not without some interest.



No comments:

Post a Comment