The Hallowed Heights of Chicken Spaghetti

Poetry Friday is here again. The most poetic thing I've done lately is to buy Robert Fagles' translation of The Odyssey. I knew a guy who used to keep this book in the car and read it when he was stuck in traffic or waiting for his kids. I like that idea, ambitious as it is for me, given that my only intellectual endeavor lately has been to read the picture book 17 Things I'm Not Allowed to Do Anymore. Which is hilarious, by the way. Junie B. Jones meets Eloise, with a little Knuffle Bunny photo/illustration style thrown in. (It does not rhyme, but neither does The Odyssey...)

From The Odyssey

"Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy."

From 17 Things I'm Not Allowed to Do Anymore, by Jenny Offill & Nancy Carpenter

"I had an idea to staple my brother's hair to his pilllow.
I am not allowed to use the stapler anymore."

And as long as we're talking about The Odyssey, I will add a link to C.P. Cavafy's "Ithaka" at the Cavafy Archive. Below is the third stanza of the poem, which was translated from the Greek by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.

You can find many other Poetry Friday posts at the Blue Rose Girls' blog today.

Comments

[adrienne]

I love The Odyssey and 17 Things I'm Not Allowed to Do Anymore, so this entry pretty much made my day. :)

[Susan]

hey, Adrienne! Thanks. I really do hope to read The Odyssey soon. I've got to get around and see the rest of the posts in Poetry Friday world.

[Michele]

How interesting that we both "went Roman" this week !

And the bit from 17 Things made me giggle !