Let the train take the strain
Riemerge dalle scartoffie questa segnalazione di Donatella, che dedico a tutti i lettori ferroviari (per la poesia ferroviaria, che è altra cosa, rimando invece a Bergonzoni):
Sonnet VII
“At the moment, if you’re seen reading poetry in a train, the carriage empties instantly.”
Andrew Motion in a “Guardian” interviewIndeed ’tis true. I travel here and there
On British Rail a lot. I’ve often said
That if you haven’t got the first-class fare,
You really need a book of verse instead.
Then, should you find that all the seats are taken,
Brandish your Edward Thomas, Yeats or Pound.
Your fellow-passengers, severely shaken,
Will almost all be loath to stick around.
Recent research in railway sociology
Shows it’s best to read the stuff aloud:
A few choice bits from Motion’s new anthologyAnd you’ll be lonelier than any cloud.
This stratagem’s a godsend to recluses
And demonstrates that poetry has its uses.(Wendy Cope, Sonnet VII [from Strugnell's Sonnets], in Making cocoa for Kingsley Amis, Faber and Faber, London, 1986)