Lifestyle Features

No turning back

Could be verse: poetry ripped straight from the headlines

By JAMES PARKER | December 16, 2008

Lines in recognition of Eric Lamarque, the Canadian truck driver who this past week caused extensive damage to the Mass Pike’s brand-new Allston U-turn.

Little Bostonians, faites attention!
I have driven here from une autre dimension!
Mais oui, my rig is big — big as the skies of old Quebec.
Funnel me through your silly kinks and corners and naturellement, there is a wreck.

Pigeon-grey, pie-eating town,
You have flattened my tires and upon you I francophonically look down.
The petty cop says "Stop!"
And you all do it, tout de suite, clip-clop.

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ARTICLES BY JAMES PARKER

GETTING TO KNOW PHILIP LARKIN WITH A NEW EDITION OF HIS POEMS | April 26, 2012
"A smash of glass and a rumble of boots/Electric trains and a ripped-up phonebooth/Paint-spattered walls and the cry of a tomcat/Lights going out, and a kick in the balls." These lines are not by Philip Larkin, of course — they're by Paul Weller.

BLACK SABBATH ARE BACK — IN PRINT AND ON FILM | November 14, 2011
The literature on Black Sabbath — already extensive — will continue to grow, as we try, try, try again to wrap our poor noggins around the irreducibly cosmic fact of this band.

REDISCOVERING METALLICA WITH A NEW BIO | August 26, 2011
Write the Lightning

REDISCOVERING METALLICA WITH A NEW BIO | August 24, 2011
That the biggest metal band in metal history should be called METALLICA — it's just so frigging metal .

REMEMBERING HÜSKER DÜ WITH TWO NEW BOOKS | June 09, 2011
"Readers of this book will be disappointed," declares Andrew Earles, rather sternly, in the introduction to his Hüsker Dü: The Story of the Noise-Pop Pioneers Who Launched Modern Rock (Voyageur Press), "if they hope to be rewarded with the gritty details of any band member's drug use."