Middlefocus

    Night Flight , Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, with an introduction by André Gide Translated by Stuart Gilbert, Penguin Books, 1940 edition. This English translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Vol de Nuit came from a late friend's bookshelves. The Penguin edition with its distinctive orange-and-white cover, denoting works of fiction, is now 86 years old and the content very much of its time.  Aviation was in its pioneering age and although the events described are tragic, the French writer, André Gide in his introduction writes "great though these risks still are, they are growing daily less, for each successive trip facilitates and improves the prospects of the next one."  Sadly those diminishing risks were not realised as is apparent by  another book from the same shelves—a book that survived an air crash. Back in 2001 my friend had ordered a title on the Geology of Ireland from a bookseller in Selkirk, Scotland. The book was on board an aircraft that crashe...

Travelling on the London Underground recently I picked up this leaflet. Glad I did.... it is a collection of 30 poems from among the 500 which the Foreword says have featured on the Tube since 1986. Poems in the Underground started 30 years ago when a group of friends, writers and poets, with the support of the London Underground had the idea of sharing favourite pieces of poetry with colleague commuters.  The programme has since been adopted over the years by many cities around the world. Some of my old school favourites are among these thirty: Shelley's Ozymandias, Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 and Keats's Endymion and of course some new to me. Poems on the Underground has been published by Penguin Books in different versions, a hardcover and an e-book in 2012 and a paperback in 2015.  Check out this link  to Penguin for more information. I wonder if some of your favourites are in there and what for you is the poetry pearl in your oyster.