In celebration of the UK’s Poetry Society’s 100 anniversary.

I find this tremendously comforting for some reason. Can you imagine the meeting where they decided to do this? “Yes…how about knitting? Everyone loves to knit. We’ll get hundreds of people to knit letters and send them to us and sew them together into a huge poem. Yes, yes, that will work.” Amazing.

For the knitted poem they selected Dylan Thomas’ My Craft or Sullen Art, which you can find in full text or audio at the Poetry Archive, and since I am a librarian, and they’ve gotten all the permissions to post it, I won’t. It’s a declaration of his craft, his role as a poet. Sort of a poetic mission statement. “I write on these spendrift pages …. for the lovers, their arms / Round the griefs of the ages, / Who pay no praise or wages / Nor heed my craft or art.” Art for arts sake.