Saturday Silly: Tales from the Deep

I think for this week's Saturday switch I won't do something terrible but something fun. 

This is from a volume called "100 Poems on the Underground." Essentially, a group promoting poetry asked the London Tube to donate some blank ad space to put up poetry for the pleasure and enrichment of the riders. The program took off like a shot and one of the results was a book collecting some of the poems which had been featured.

The Loch Ness Monster's Song

Edwin Morgan

Sssnnnwhuffffll?
Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl?
Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl.
Drublhaflablhaflubhafgabhaflhafl fl fl -
gm grawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw gm.
Hovoplodok - doplodovok - plovodokot - doplodokosh?
Splgraw fok fok splgrafhatchgabrlgabrl fok splfok!
Zgra kra gka fok!
Grof grawff gahf?
Gombl mbl bl -
blm plm,
blm plm,
blm plm,
blp






Awesome stuff - the author explains in a note that the lonely monster rises from the loch, looks around for the companions of its youth (other dinosaurs now long extinct) and finding no sign of them, returns to the depths of the lake after a brief swearing session. It's cute, it's fun, it's almost Jabberwockian - all things I could use more of, probably. (Most of the poetry I like is awful dark.)


Nearly any poetry organization I know of has as one of its aims: "The preservation and continued appreciation of poetry in contemporary public life."Meaning, essentially: people don't read poems anymore, and they should, but even if they get taught in school what it is, they don't get taught how to love it.


So why isn't there a program like this in every metropolis in America? Doing a perfunctory Google search shows some old results, some programs similar to the London Underground, but the most recent news story was from four years ago, and most of the results were much older than that.


Was the program discontinued? Was it lack of funds? Lack of interest? Or just time to move onto something else?


I would be shocked and awed to see something like this not just on buses or subways, but in elevators or waiting rooms or bus stops or anyplace people kill time. I mean, sometimes it's either read the writing on the wall or dig through the receipts in your wallet looking for SOMETHING to read.


I just can't help but feel that poetry isn't dead in contemporary society, but the means we're using to popularize poetry are.