I look at the book’s thickness
and dread (past tense: drood?)
my great expectations but Pip
and the decayed lady
in the decayed wedding dress
captured me, Charles, they did,
captured me forever, opening
the great not the little dorrit
of my head. I twisted
with Fagin but Nancy died,
Charles, she died! while
David in his penny meadow
watched Sydney die so Lucy
could love in one city if not
the other and Little Nell, Charles,
such a curiosity they shopped as
they called to the boats in Boston,
what of Little Nell? What of her?
Uriah heaped evil upon evil and
that little villain who quilped
his badness, Charles, where did
he come from and where did he go?
An even easier miser gave
his name for all as he pondered
the surplus population (like
the child with the crutch, Charles).
Mysteries, wonderful mysteries,
but the greatest was the boy
in the blacking factory
re-imagining the literature,
re-imagining the novel,
re-imagining the language;
he did that, Charles, you know
he did that, that boy; that boy
in the blacking factory
fathered them all.
Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. I was 12 when I read A Tale of Two Cities, 14 when I read Great Expectations and 15 when I read David Copperfield. Dickens opened up a new world for me, and he remains a major influence on my writing.
Related:
There’s an online journal assembling all of his known published work: http://www.djo.org.uk/
This poem is submitted for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. To see more poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time today.
