Some beautiful things...

My mother bought me the most wondrous Christmas present: an anthology of "the best poetry since 1900." It's fabulous, exquisitely presented, and comes with a CD of some of the poets reading their own poems. It's really something else to hear T.S. Eliot reading The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock and Sylvia Plath's recitation of Daddy.

I've also been introduced to numerous other poets, including John Betjeman whose poem The Licorice Fields at Pontefract is something quite perfect. My favorite lines were:

"Her sulky lips were shaped for sin"

and

"Oh love! for love I could not speak,

It left me winded, wilting, weak,"

Gorgeous. John Betjeman leaves me winded, wilting, weak.

(P.S. My roomie came home from Christmas break with the album Dark Was the Night. It's mind-blowing and includes artists from The Decemberists and Iron & Wine to bands I'd never even heard of but are equally grand. Check it out)