Poet takes a pot shot at anthologist
IN HIS new book The Day and Other Poems, the poet Robert Wells offers the following in On an Anthologist.
It does good to body and soul/ When I open my fly, take aim/ (Looking down at the lavatory bowl)/ And piss all over your name.
Strong stuff. But what sort of name might one find in a toilet bowl? “I’m not going to say any more than is said in the poem,” says Wells, cautiously, when we call. “I was rather hoping no one would notice it.”
Over to the poet and, erm, anthologist Simon Armitage: “I’m flattered. But I’m more impressed by his aim.”
Advertisement
PS
At Turn the Tables, an event for Cancer Research UK, the MPs Michael Howard and Bob Marshall-Andrews get the right to interrogate the journalists Ian Hislop and Nick Robinson. Howard might prefer to question Jeremy Paxman. Several times.
Advertisement
people@thetimes.co.uk