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Set Fire to the Stars
What happens when The Muse asks; what’s your favourite Dylan poem?
“What’s your favourite Dylan” asks The Muse. I umm and ahh and fail to make any meaningful reply. To be fair, I have only just found this copy of his Collected Poems and have barely had a chance to skim through the one hundred seventy odd pages. The Muse relents and I get to reading.
It’s tricky though. Dylan (not Bob) Thomas is not universally loved and he was certainly divisive as far back as 1926; which in TikTok years is around the same time as when dinosaurs clomped around on the planet. Some dude named Kenneth Hopkins said Dylan divided readers and critics into ‘the scoffers and understanders.’ I’ve no idea which I might be because right now, it takes all I have to deal with the hideous shade of pink of the dust cover on this Everyman edition. And no, I can’t bring myself to rip the bright cerise cover off and use it as a firestarter.
An initial flick through and I’m quickly absorbed if not enthralled. Then I get to To-Day, This Insect and meet the second line:
‘Now that my symbols have outelbowed space’
And I have to pause to find the meaning of outelbowed. Logic would suggest it is merely out elbowed so kind of pushed aside but this is thee English language and I do a quick search. Then I think maybe Susie Dent might have said…
