Great to read a rejoinder, Sally, and with so much life in it.
(Oh yes, my own item was packed with out of date prejudices.
That medical check I mentioned took place in 1967 before I came to my new job in
Melbourne...)(Anthony Powell is beginning to charm me.)
Max
Quoting Sally Evans <[log in to unmask]>:
> snap
>
>
> Is no one but me allowed
> to define Englishmen
> dismissively with limits,
> Bloomsbury, Oxbridge?
> Nobody's Oxbridge -
> they take sides.
>
> Is no one but me
> allowed to remember
> establishment brothers
> on bored country Sundays,
> rushed, refined
> visits to Bloomsbury?
>
> To make a life elsewhere,
> submerged awareness
> of their habits and foibles,
> those different choices
> in different climes
> turned back on me?
>
> Culture without fuss,
> without narrators or steamers,
> or European hotels,
> without smart dining
> and conversations
> self-satisfied?
>
> Books damp or crumbled
> my thought free
> of pointless edicts
> in standard dictionaries
> whose compilers take port
> in an ancient hall?
>
> Here, I can spare this bookmark
> my father left in a book
> by an Englishman.
> I have halls enough,
> grounds enough.
> Flowers and words grow wild.
>
>
> Sally Evans
> http://www.desktopsallye.com
> http://www.poetryscotland.co.uk
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