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Accolade for J. W. Bazalgette

by James Graham 

Posted: 01 February 2012
Word Count: 226
Summary: A sort of modern apostrophe. Couldn't think of anyone living that beats this guy!


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Accolade for J.W. Bazalgette

Sir Joseph William Bazalgette:
it would have been an honour, sir,
to meet you. A brief embarrassment
for you, though - I’d have been
struck dumb, or blurted out
‘I love your work’. Or even made
a gaffe about your marvellous name,
that rings with sympathetic magic,
a great necromancer’s name (or so
it seems to me, but probably
to no-one else). Ah, better surely

that we are separated by a century;
that though I cannot speak to you
I can tell the folks who have forgotten
what they learned in school:

you built the London sewers, vast
colonic tubes like railway tunnels.
You ended the Great Stink.
Before the medics had learned how
to punish microscopic lethal mites
that drained the body in a day, and left
dry corpses - you had made the water clean.
You flushed out cholera from the city.

You estimated how much excrement
would issue from each borough daily,
worked out diameters, then doubled them.
Simplicity is genius. You doubled them:
and so in 2012 the snarled-up city
still runs freely below ground, and fish
live in the Thames. It would indeed

have been an honour, sir, to meet you,
but you knew you could not live as long
as your great buried piece of modern art.
We love your work. It will outlive us too.








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Comments by other Members



V`yonne at 19:13 on 01 February 2012  Report this post
and at the same time he made the pumping station look like a cathedral, James. A worthy candidate indeed.

I don't think you need to be so bald here:
you built the London sewers, vast
colonic tubes like railway tunnels.


just

you built London's vast
colonic sewers like railway tubes.

and maybe

Before the medics you learned how
to punish microscopic lethal mites

I like it. Why not fling that at us too?

Nella at 20:07 on 01 February 2012  Report this post
Great fun here, James. What a good idea - I'm sure I wouldn't have thought of it. But, indeed, what a milestone he created.

it would have been an honour, sir,
to meet you
I really like the sound of this line, and the way you repeat it.

Robin

nickb at 20:21 on 01 February 2012  Report this post
Great choice Graham, Victorian engineers did things on a grand scale, real visionaries. I really like -

You estimated how much excrement
would issue from each borough daily,
worked out diameters, then doubled them.
Simplicity is genius. You doubled them:



I'd love to see him try and get through the layers of business cases, local authorities and accountants to double it today!

Nick

Xenny at 18:30 on 04 February 2012  Report this post
James, this is one of my favourite things I have read recently. I think it's mainly the idea that I love so much, but obviously it means I appreciate the way you wrote it too.

It *is* a great necromancer's name indeed!

I loved:

You doubled them:


I really felt your appreciation here for that simple yet fundamental bit of common sense.

Oh and the end is amazing.

I wasn't sure I co liked this bit being in there:

Ah, better surely

that we are separated by a century;
that though I cannot speak to you
I can tell the folks who have forgotten
what they learned in school:


I think I understand the wish to say it, but I feel like it detracts from the sense and strength of the poem, and what it adds seems not enough to make up for that.

That's a really minor point though. Overall I enjoyed this hugely.

Dave Morehouse at 11:27 on 02 March 2012  Report this post
James - This piece reads as fluid as the topic. The sewers are universal to London; accessed by all. I love the way you make this poem similarly common and accessible. In particular I enjoyed the doubling of 'doubled', the 'estimate of excrement', and 'separated by centuries'. Taking on and portraying the embarrassment of Bazalgette in the opening stanza breathes life into the poem from the very beginning. Nicely done, Dave.

James Graham at 11:45 on 02 March 2012  Report this post
Thanks, Dave, for your positive comment.

James.


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