March 2003

Nomination: Talking in Bed [10 August 1960. From The Whitsun Weddings]

I chose ‘Talking in Bed’ because it is at once so simple and so profoundly philosophical, obviously situated in the context of two humans, fighting against their own alienation and against a hostile environment, but extending to some eternal human dilemmas. The projection of how difficult it can be to tell the truth and keep your friends too is one of the finest achievements of the poem.

Bahaa-Eddin Mazid