ABSTRACT
The day after the London bombings on July 7, 2005, I was due to attend a “soirée” with friends in Sydney. The gathering took place in an apartment overlooking the harbor. The apartment itself was modest but it was located in a prime position, and typifi ed the easy luxury of those lucky enough to have a harbor view. I use the term soirée advisedly. All the guests (many of whom were performers or artists themselves) had been asked to bring a song, a poem, a piece of music, a work of their own, or an anecdote to share with the others across the evening. Surprisingly perhaps, everyone complied. It was a whimsical event in parts, but with moments of bravura and talent and the sweetness of unexpected, intimate performance. It worked, just that once I suspect. My own contribution was a reading of “On Westminster Bridge,” Wordsworth’s sonnet to the still heart of London, looking down the river in the morning quiet. I selected it that particular day as homage to a beloved city, for perhaps the same reason that it is celebrated, or deployed, in the manner of poems on the underground, or, as quoted in the new slavery museum at the Docklands: “I love this concrete jungle still,1/with all its sirens and its speed,/the people here united will,/create a kind of London breed” (Benjamin Zephaniah, 2007(1996)). As with Zephaniah’s lyrical rap, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” says it all. It is formally precise, with just parochial sentiment enough to grab at the nostalgic itching for London, a longing for inclusion that works on you while you are there almost as much as when you are not.
