Inkwell Journal

Life imitates art

Andrew Boobier

I was walking down the street readinga poem sent by some chap from Ohio
about a blackbird when a blackbird flew
overhead and shat on the manuscript
across a line that included the words
'liquid siftings' which he'd pinched
from T.S. Eliot. Yes, I thought, there's
a real poem here until someone across
the road distracted me shouting & waving.
It was Julie, a friend of mine, who just
wanted to say Hello. I showed her the poem
containing the bird shit and she said yes
there's a real poem there, are you gonna
publish it? I said I wasn't sure my readers
would like this sort of thing, you know,
poems about poems containing bits of other
poems. She said I should be more adventurous,
tell my readers to stop fussing, you know,
get out more. I said you're right and put it
in the next issue. I think it went down well,
although one bright fellow from New Hampshire
wrote in to say that blackbirds of this ilk
did not live in the USA; the poet was confusing
the Agelaius phoeniceus with the European Turdus merula,
from Turdidae, pertaining to the Thrush family,
and not what you might think it means.

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