(…for some reason I want to finish this line “a stately pleasure dome decree” – though I know this can’t be right.) (In fact, I know it isn’t. Geez Louise! Just let me have my moment.)
This week seems the ideal moment to bring to your attention to a delightful, and now defunct, poetry blog, the loss of whose future unborn posts is a loss indeed to us all. A fine rant, is what it promised. And although the top post’s mention of Salt Publishing (in an earlier incarnation) gives me a pain (I remember the ad in question and thought it was a clever thing), the headline is kind of worth the agony.
I bet you had no idea cuttlefish were so erudite.
The CUTTLEFISH is a cephalopod. It has the ability to change colour very rapidly, making it extremely good at natural camouflage. It can change colour in less than a second. Cuttlefish also use colour to signal emotions such as anger, fear and sexual arousal.They will flush deep red when agitated and then change to a mottled sand colour as natural camouflage so they can disappear into the surroundings. They are INTENSELY interested in poetry.
Editing in: this post, for some weird reason, is now by quite a hefty margin the most-read post on Baroque in Hackney. Every day Iget loads of readers who were googling “cuttlefish.” Who knew! Why all the curiosity? I couldn’t say. But to all of you, who must be disappointed that I can’t tell you more about the actual cephalopod, I do hope you’ll have a look around. We like to have fun here and we like people who are curious about things.
10 Comments
March 19, 2009 at 11:25 am
I believe the quotation you were trying to remember goes
In Xanadu a crocodile
Improves his shining tail
And Alph the sacred river pours
On every golden scale.
Hope that helps.
RHE
March 19, 2009 at 11:26 am
Thanks Richard, that’s it exactly.
March 19, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I was thinking of this very blog only on Saturday. Nice to see it’s still around.
March 19, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Oh yes, t, we’re still here. But where have you been?
March 19, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Apologies. I wrote this but I should have written that.
Where have I been?
To visit the Queen
Elizabeth Hall.
Y’all.
March 19, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Oh, you guys are great. I have the best readers in the world.
April 4, 2009 at 10:23 pm
This was Michael Donaghy’s blog (or one of them anyway), was it not?
April 4, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Hi David – yep, I think that was the only one. There were lots of things going on but I think that was the only blog.
And hey, I read your piece in the Guardian today – not in huge depth, as I was waiting for a friend in a shop, but very good. I’ve still got the paper so will read again.
July 7, 2009 at 10:44 am
Thanks for this link — squid lawlessness at its best, and sadly missed. The Perloff dismissal is a particular pearl…
July 7, 2009 at 11:20 am
Bill, it’s memorable, isn’t it – so glad you’ve found it!