Thanks to Michael Bartholomew-Biggs for publishing this poem in London Grip. It begins with two events recalled from childhood: an excruciating misidentification and an act of entrepreneurialism happily unrepeated since. Over time, as I chipped away at it, 'Stone' became what I usually hope to avoid writing: a poem about a poem. The tone changed too. Perhaps the speaker, whom I meant to be sympathetic, risks seeming insufferable. So, things aren't always as they appear to us. We can laugh at that fact, try to make something of it, or do both, as I think the speakers' parents knew.
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Tim Youngs
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