Friday, August 18, 2006

August 18



I'm posting this in honour of Sparky's Illustrated Poem Marathon. It's a tiny concertina book in a mini Altoid tin. The poem is by W.S. Merwin, a poet I'd never heard of until I read a few of his lines on a "Poetry in Motion" poster in a New York subway train. I was so struck by them, that as soon as I got off the train I found a bookstore and bought one of his poetry collections. Which just goes to show that do-gooders' attempts to shove culture down our throats actually work, in some instances.

Anyway, this poem is part of a longer piece called "Kore".

I have watched your smile in your sleep
and I know it is the boat
in which my sun rides under the earth
all night on the wave of your breath
no wonder the days grow short
and waking without you
is the beginning of winter

5 comments:

Dave said...

It looks beautiful - such a nice contrast to the Merwin, whom I always think of as a minimialist. I'm sure he would be pleased. (And I'm happy to hear someone got something out of one of those Poetry in Motion posters. Public poetry always makes me very uncomfortable, for some reason - like accidently surprising a couple in the act.)

Dave said...

Oops! Make that "mimimalist."

Nina Johansson said...

Wow, how cool is this? I love this little thingy! Beautiful, and a great idea.

Globetrotter said...

hxVery cool! Just shows that you can even discover beauty in a subway!

Ramesh Gandhi said...

This is such a good idea. I love WS Merwin's poetry. The flow of your book seems to go very well with the way his poems flow, unpunctuated.