Martin Huxter, Etruscan Figure (2014)
A recipe for verse: mix together a phrase from Henry James with a little bronze statue from Etruria, a mention of Keats, and some exasperation. Now add a clever woman, a sprinkle of hard words, a children's bear, and a few notes from an air by Bach. When all of that is thoroughly combined, place the resulting compound in a receptacle made of Roman streets, the Spanish Steps and the Borghese Gardens. Leave to rest in a warm place for an unspecified amount of time (you'll know when it's ready). Serve viva voce, with improvised accompaniment if desired.
An Etruscan Acrobat uses 345 lines of blank verse to tell the beguiling tale of an artist’s evening walk through the streets of Rome. Produced in a limited edition, the book is hand-stitched by designer Simone Kotva and includes a specially commissioned frontispiece by artist Martin Huxter.
And now, if you’re sitting comfortably, let’s begin …
"It’s not like Clapham Junction …" Yes, it is!
I thought (never having been to Clapham),
It’s very like that, with its human hordes
Forever on the move: nowhere to sit,
Nowhere quiet to work, nowhere to think!
"Passing through Rome requires a week or two,"
I read. Bien sûr, if you’re an English gent,
I thought, with a linen coat and straw hat,
Swanning around after some drippy girl!
I crumpled the leaflet and let it drop.
Who in their right mind could have written that?