Today Facebook reminded me of a photo I posted last year in honor of World Poetry Day. The poem in question was Sylvia Plath’s The Swarm from Ariel, the restored edition.
Today, while I hunted for a proper poem to remember for this blog, the only line that kept coming back to me was Simon Armitage’s poem, Let Me Put It This Way. I wrote a scene in my novel Loving Ashe where Ashe recites this poem to Riley as she falls asleep, but of course, I couldn’t use it. So for the last two years going on three, only I knew what the poem was since I could only allude to it – and in fact, changed it to a poem about sheep by someone else.
Here’s the poem:
Let me put it this way:
if you came to lay
your sleeping head
against my arm or sleeve,
and if my arm went dead,
or if I had to take my leave
at midnight, I should rather
cleave it from the joint or seam
than make a scene
or bring you round.
There,
how does that sound?
Happy World Poetry Day, everyone! What’s your favorite poem?
Liz Durano 