For Dickens's birthday, a complex but poignant reinvention of Pip and Estella's final meeting in Great Expectations
Estella (Vanessa Kirby) and Pip (Douglas Booth) in the 2011 BBC adaptation of Great Expectations. Photograph: Nick Briggs/BBC
Charles Dickens was born on February 7 1812, and this week's poem, "I Am Greatly Changed" by Richard Price, appears in a new anthology of 21st century poets' tributes, A Mutual Friend: Poems for Charles Dickens.
Published by Two Rivers Press with the English Association, the volume is edited by the poet Peter Robinson, whose own new collection, The Returning Sky (Shearsman), is a PBS Recommendation for this quarter.
"I Am Greatly Changed" will also appear in Price's forthcoming collection, Small World, which will be published by Carcanet in November.
I Am Greatly Changed
Great Expectations
That poor dream, as I once used to call it,
has all gone by. (The freshness of beauty
is the saddened softened light
of once proud eyes.) I have very often - .
I intended to come back. Tracing, proving.
I thought - . I thought you would like - .
'God bless you, God forgive you!'
you said to me.
I am greatly changed.
I thought you would like to shake hands.
What I had never felt before
was the friendly touch.
I very often hoped - .
I have often
thought of you.
An imaginary case.
I have been considerate and good,
I have been bent and broken,
suffering, God forgive you.
Suffering, God bless you.
(Suffering has been stronger
than all other teaching,
a heart to understand
what my heart used to be.)
The ground belongs!
Everything else,
little by little, has gone.
I wonder you know me.
If you could say to me then
'God bless you! God forgive you!'
you will not hesitate now.
('God bless you,' you said to me).
Poor, poor old place!
Ruined place.
Would I step back?
Ignorant, held?
She gave me her assurance
(her voice, her touch).
I took her hand,
evening mists rising now, tranquil.
'We are friends.'
More at The Guardian.
Published by Two Rivers Press with the English Association, the volume is edited by the poet Peter Robinson, whose own new collection, The Returning Sky (Shearsman), is a PBS Recommendation for this quarter.
"I Am Greatly Changed" will also appear in Price's forthcoming collection, Small World, which will be published by Carcanet in November.
I Am Greatly Changed
Great Expectations
That poor dream, as I once used to call it,
has all gone by. (The freshness of beauty
is the saddened softened light
of once proud eyes.) I have very often - .
I intended to come back. Tracing, proving.
I thought - . I thought you would like - .
'God bless you, God forgive you!'
you said to me.
I am greatly changed.
I thought you would like to shake hands.
What I had never felt before
was the friendly touch.
I very often hoped - .
I have often
thought of you.
An imaginary case.
I have been considerate and good,
I have been bent and broken,
suffering, God forgive you.
Suffering, God bless you.
(Suffering has been stronger
than all other teaching,
a heart to understand
what my heart used to be.)
The ground belongs!
Everything else,
little by little, has gone.
I wonder you know me.
If you could say to me then
'God bless you! God forgive you!'
you will not hesitate now.
('God bless you,' you said to me).
Poor, poor old place!
Ruined place.
Would I step back?
Ignorant, held?
She gave me her assurance
(her voice, her touch).
I took her hand,
evening mists rising now, tranquil.
'We are friends.'
More at The Guardian.
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