Bail Bail

Beckett fact no. 62.

Crossing the road from Hodges Figgis, where I'd been reading that one-line poem, I went to see the exhibition of Beckett manuscripts in the Long Room at Trinity. Among the exhibits were some unpublished later poems in English, displayed alongside French poems that appeared in the mirlitonnades. And by coincidence there was the one-line poem I quoted in my last fact. Or not quite: this time it was a two-line poem:

away dream all
away

One line? Two lines? Someone put out a call for papers right now.

This one too could probably squeeze into a single line, with a little nip-and-tuck round the caesura:

bail bail till better
founder

And there were more. Go have a look at them yourselves.