With some notable exceptions, the Art Student hates poetry. So this conversation that happened as I was cooking breakfast on Saturday morning was a moment to be savoured.
Art Student: There’s a poem by Jennifer Maiden in the Spectrum. [That’s a supplement to the Sydney Morning Herald.]
Me: Really! Read it to me.
Art Student: You know I can’t read poetry.
Me: (wheedlingly) Go on, please …
And she did. She read ‘My heart has an Embassy’. Beautifully. Whether it was the short lines, the brevity of the poem, or the way it makes metaphor out of a situation from the headlines – Julian Assange’s seeking asylum in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London – the poem slipped effortlessly past the poetry-hating guards.
I couldn’t find ‘My heart has an Embassy’ online. Sorry!
[Added later: In a Me Fail? I Fly! exclusive, Jennifer Maiden’s daughter Katharine has posted the poem in a comment!]
Me fail? I fly! 