Three Poems

So Error May Not Breed
'What one seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same
thing necessary for its creation, a self-forgetful, perfectly
useless concentration.' Elizabeth Bishop on Darwin as
observer of nature, quoted by James Fenton in Ars Poetica,
Independent on Sunday, 8 April 1990. However, a typesetter's
error rendered the text as follows: 'The same "perfunctory
useless concentration" goes into her inventions.'

Before the war, as a compositor,
I set type: Bodoni, Gill Sans
or occasionally a grand Victorian statement
with those oval Egyptians expanded.

A pica em would bring an errant
line to heel, dressed to the same length -
justified, as Christ, after death,
shows true colours compared in strength.
...