Middlemarch: A Sonnet
In Middlemarch true love emergesAmidst stilted, traditional ways.Force and custom get their dirgeswhen freedom and will are set ablaze. Dorothea, pure of heart,Gave up a legacyFor she could not stay alive apartFrom the spirit she did see In Will. Will’s will, his...
Ahem, Mister Nabokov
You and your Pale Fire Uncle Vladimir has left us something from which we can learn. He penned a book in verse that novel was. And we, the beneficiaries, avoid it at our peril. For in it he tells of teachers, nymphs and wives And utters the thoughts we thought but...
To our dead Uncle Nabokov
It’s a pale fire, and then paler still Never to consume more intimate history Never more to creep or twist or twirl through logs Wond’ring if a boy would ever, ever meet this girl Who would think of her—yes, the very lift of my very nose? Or my voice’s cadence—or my...