Cover of the 1964 Time Reading Program Special Edition of Bend Sinister, by Vladimir Nabokov
New Novel Poem
Note: I’ve got into a habit of looking forward (and finding) passages in the books I read that seem to want to be poetry. I write down a few as a way to remember the novels better. Here’s a recent one from Nabokov’s Bend Sinister, which I’m reading for the first time.
Bend
I am a lake.
I am a tongue.
I am a spirit.
I am fevered.
I am not covetous.
I am the Dark Cavalier.
I am the torch.
I arise. I ask. I blow.
I bring. I cannot change.
I cannot look.
I climb the hill.
I come. I dream. I envy.
I found. I heard.
I intended an Ode.
I know. I love.
I must not grieve,
my love. I never.
I pant. I remember.
I saw thee once.
I travelled. I wandered.
I will. I will. I will. I will.
— Found poem in Bend Sinister, Vladimir Nabokov, page 28 of my 1964 Time Reading Program Special Edition