Ways of thinking
about literature
made the writer’s muse smile
She didn’t like nuns and dog’s breakfasts
Her teacher at school became
confusingly unchangeable.
She wasn’t sharing
so we heard bells toll,
What to read and what to shirk
she dismayed us in her
uncertainty; books matter;
even that we revolved slowly
in some planetary action
for human salutations
This remade powerfully—
the way to live;
to live improperly was
to read
art works with the eye of truth
and they affected me,
and ironised
other ways of seeing
the ambitions of over-arching theory
and hence our being.
I was educated to love with all my heart
How my heart sings 