We are all both the victims and the heirs of our fellow-men. - Ellis Peters

Scrapbook

2005, April 23

Black March, by Stevie Smith

Black March, a poem by Stevie Smith, 1902-1971

I have a friend At the end Of the world. His name is a breath Of fresh air. He is dressed in Grey chiffon. At least I think it is chiffon. It has a Peculiar look, like smoke. It wraps him round It blows out of place It conceals him I have not seen his face. But I have seen his eyes, they are As pretty and bright As raindrops on black twigs In March, and heard him say: I am a breath Of fresh air for you, a change By and by. Black March I call him Because of his eyes Being like March raindrops On black twigs. (Such a pretty time when the sky Behind black twigs can be seen Stretched out in one Uninterrupted Cambridge blue as cold as snow.) But this friend Whatever new names I give him Is an old friend. He says: Whatever names you give me I am A breath of fresh air, A change for you.

Stevie Smith, 1902-1971

Collected Poems, S. Smith

Stevie Smith, British Library (with picture)

Stevie Smith, BBC (with picture and interview)

from The Believer, April 2005

2005, April 05

Excerpt Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov

An Excerpt from Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov, 1907-1977

…everything surged forward—truck one, Pnin, truck two. From where I stood I watched them recede in the frame of the roadway, between the Moorish house and the Lombardy poplar. Then the little sedan boldly swung past the front truck and, free at last, spurted up the shining road which one could make out narrowing to a thread of gold in the soft mist where hill after hill made beauty of distance, and where there was simply no saying what miracle might happen.

Nabokov Biobraphy

Pnin

2005, March 31

Snow, by Louis MacNeice

Snow, a poem by Louis MacNeice, 1907-1963

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkeness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes-
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands-
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

Short Biography

Some Poems

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