And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
-Genesis 2:19 (KJV)
There are many ways to settle in to a new place. One is to give them names of one’s own. Inspired by parodies giving alternate names to tube stations in London, I have produced a map whose stations take into account the poetic landscape. This is not intended to be the poet’s tube map, but rather a poet’s tube map–mine, representing my own thoughts and experiences at the intersection between London and the lyre.
It tends to go like this: we are having an interesting conversation, bantering a bit, and then one of us says something clever, or strange, and oftentimes a little surreal. Out comes the phrase, directed at me with all the sincere enthusiasm of a revelation. Of the friends, colleagues, and relatives who know that I write poems, it is uncanny how many have, at one time or another, exclaimed to me, “You should write a poem about that!”
Normally, as the weeks roll by, I get up early to write, read in the evenings after work, and collect the occasional acceptance or rejection slip from the mailbox. By contrast, this week felt like the equivalent of some kind of poetry hyperdrive, including:
