I just started Umberto Eco's Island of the Day Before. I grant that L'Isola del Giorno Prima is a better title, with better meanings, and that translating multiple entendres is impossible. Nonetheless, a title like Island of the Day Before is the sort of title a writer in a Graham Greene novel would give to his first, failed book. This is my first Eco, but all the write people enjoy him (the Wino, Remoulade, etc...), so I'm expecting great things. I know that almost goes without saying, but...
Here's a little something I whipped out on break this morning, looking for some feedback, although I know from hard experience that on this blog it's much easier to get tons of comments on the latest jet fighter deal between the U.S. and India than it is to get feedback on poems. A notable exception is the El Paso post, four posts down, in which Weston Hicks was made to blush and grovel. Where art thou, Weston? Return unto us.
One thing to note: the rhymes in the second stanza (c and d) are a little to close and cuddly for comfort. Don't know that I like it.
Beginning With the Logos
Un soneto d'amore per G. M. Hopkins e Wendell Berry
The Roman roads endure, and English trails
Cut still through Appalachians, axe and Indian.
How great are man's achieves, the engines and rails:
The whiskey-fueled Burmese, the grand Canadian.
But greatest yet, the wide and open flow
Of six-lane American brand-name roads,
Of neon, of franchise, and plastic signs in a row.
Beginning with the logos, enfleshed in gold.
These wide and brazen paths, all lit at night
To drown the stars above and block the trees;
By not one name, or center, or communal site,
Are known all sprawled the places we take our ease.
The tributary streets do not meet, but fall,
Separate, downtownless, to drink the malls.
Here's a little something I whipped out on break this morning, looking for some feedback, although I know from hard experience that on this blog it's much easier to get tons of comments on the latest jet fighter deal between the U.S. and India than it is to get feedback on poems. A notable exception is the El Paso post, four posts down, in which Weston Hicks was made to blush and grovel. Where art thou, Weston? Return unto us.
One thing to note: the rhymes in the second stanza (c and d) are a little to close and cuddly for comfort. Don't know that I like it.
Beginning With the Logos
Un soneto d'amore per G. M. Hopkins e Wendell Berry
The Roman roads endure, and English trails
Cut still through Appalachians, axe and Indian.
How great are man's achieves, the engines and rails:
The whiskey-fueled Burmese, the grand Canadian.
But greatest yet, the wide and open flow
Of six-lane American brand-name roads,
Of neon, of franchise, and plastic signs in a row.
Beginning with the logos, enfleshed in gold.
These wide and brazen paths, all lit at night
To drown the stars above and block the trees;
By not one name, or center, or communal site,
Are known all sprawled the places we take our ease.
The tributary streets do not meet, but fall,
Separate, downtownless, to drink the malls.
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