Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Here is another confession: I read newspapers for poetry.

Yes, there are poets with columns, like Lynn Crosbie, a weekly contributor to the Globe and Mail, and society scribe Malcolm Parry, who, though he does not identify as a poet, enjoys similar syntactic freedoms with the Vancouver Sun. But this is not what I am talking about.

For me, it is the inadvertent poetry.

Below is one such gem I found on Page A2 of today’s Globe concerning Her Royal Highness Elizabeth II’s 22nd visit to Canada, as reported by Oliver Moore. This, to me, is as resonant as Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” (1913).

“’How often do you see a Queen?’” asked 15-year-old David O’Shea, clutching a handful of pink peonies sodden after a three-hour wait.”

I'll leave the line breaks up to you.

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