Second paragraph of first chapter:Why not indeed. Here's a list of the most likely possibilities:1 Beat - Monometer
He bangs
The drum.

2 Beats - Dimeter
His drumming noise
Awakes the boys.

3 Beats - Trimeter
His drumming makes a noise.
And wakes the sleeping boys.

4 Beats - Tetrameter
He bangs the drum and makes a noise,
It shakes the roof and ( Read more... )

Second stanza of third poem ("Swineherd", by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin):I intend to learn how to make coffee, at least as well
As the Portuguese lay-sister in the kitchen
And polish the brass fenders every day.
I want to lie awake at night
Listening to cream crawling to the top of the jug
And the water lying soft in the cistern.
Second paragraph of ( Read more... )

A prolonged bout of man-flu meant that I had little energy for much apart from lying in bed reading and watching films over the last week or so. (Fully recovered now, thanks.) So that takes me to The Best Years Of Our Lives, winner of the 1947 Oscar for Best Motion Picture, with another seven (eight by some counts) Oscars on the night - Best ( Read more... )

Rather than the second paragraph of Book III, I’m taking the second paragraph of Book II as my sample text, because it includes the single best known quotation from the poem:

P. Vergilius Maro

Primus ibi ante omnis magna comitante caterva ( Read more... )

If I was us, I wouldn't start from hereEspecially in a broken home like ours ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third essay: Unease about translation does not just cover the exporting of texts into another language; their importation too can be problematic. Translation’s very existence challenges our understanding of what a literary text is. Further, by asserting that things worth knowing exist outside the home culture’s boundaries, ( Read more... )

Third poem in the book (actually Catullus 5):

My Lesbia, let us live and love ( Read more... )

Not the Christmas Poem You Were Looking For
Jo Walton reflects.
(tags: christmas poetry )

A Trump Christmas Carol
by @rozkaveney, @PennyRed, @scalzi and @bluejowalton.
(tags: Sf Uspolitics )

King John was not a good man -
He had his little ways.
And sometimes no one spoke to him
For days and days and days.
And men who came across him,
When walking in the town,
Gave him a supercilious stare,
Or passed with noses in the air -
And bad King John stood dumbly there,
Blushing beneath his crown.

( Read more... )

No man is an island entire of itself ( Read more... )