By Flapper Press Poetry Café:
The Flapper Press Poetry Café continues a new series of articles about favorite lines of poetry and the poets who wrote them. We’re reaching out to poets, writers, and lovers of poetry to submit their favorite lines of poetry and tell us why you love them.
Check out our submission guidelines and send us your favorites!
We'll feature your submission sometime this year on our site!
This week, our submission comes from Flapper Press contributor Ed Marquette.
Ed Marquette writes:
I do not really have a poem or a line from a poem that qualifies as truly my favorite. I think poetry touches one more at an emotional level than [at] a rational level. For that reason, a poem that appeals one day may not be so appealing on another day while in a different mood. I’m in a rather whimsical mood today, and the poem below came to mind. The author is unknown, and it appears on a gravestone in England, written (apparently) 200 years ago. For many, death is a serious thing (and it is), but for me, neither denial nor morbidity is acceptable. Being able to smile in the face of something as final as the grave is the ultimate statement of faith.
Here lies the body of our Anna Done to death by a banana It wasn’t the fruit that laid her low But the skin of the thing that made her go
The line “But the skin of the thing that made her go” is, of course, the punchline. I do like that, though in my mind I think of it as “But ‘twas the skin of the thing that made her go!”
P.S. I want my gravestone to say, “But neither of his sons was a lawyer.”
Read more Favorite Lines of Poetry here!
Ed Marquette has a national legal practice focused on intellectual property, technology, trade regulation, and healthcare matters. His IP practice includes brand and trademark counseling, protection, and enforcement initially growing out of his franchising experience. He learned from a dear friend that “lawyers, as officers of the court, should rise above that which is selfish, that which is petty, and that which is unbecoming for a true professional.” He is a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and friend.