Because of the upcoming London Olympics, there is a veritable extravaganza of art and cultural events happening all over the United Kingdom this summer.
Because this is Britain, a lot of the activities revolve around literary themes. Such as the collection, World Poems on the Underground, free copies of which are everywhere: libraries, bookstores, what-have-you.
The poems are written by poets from “forty-four different countries,” many of whom “settled in London, drawn by its long tradition of welcoming the wider diaspora from every country of the world.” The poems “have all been displayed on the London Underground.” (Wow, can you imagine such a thing happening in New York??? That would be sooo fab!)
Here’s a poem, “Almost without Noticing,” written by the Finnish poet Eira Stenberg and translated by Herbert Lomas:
Almost without Noticing
Almost without noticing,
without thinking, it seems,
you’ve arrived where you see far.
Thirty years back, more, the path vanishes,
thirty years ahead, more, the path vanishes:
you’re forced to sit down in the shade
and think.
Memory,
mother of truth and myth,
tell how the terrain divided the stream.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
