Shitty
by Kingsley Amis, 1922-1995
• Background
A life-threatening illness gives you a different perspective on things. Kingsley Amis, though in no such danger himself, captured this imaginatively in these morbidly reactionary lines.
"Bedizened" means "showily over-dressed."
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• Play the reading
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• Text of the poem
Look thy last on all things shitty
While thou'rt at it: soccer stars,
Soccer crowds, bedezined bushheads
Jerking over their guitars.
German tourists, plastic roses,
Face of Mao and face of Ché,
Women wearing curtains, blankets,
Beckett at the ICA.
High-rise blocks and action paintings,
Sculptures made from wire and lead:
Each of them a sight more lovely
Than the screens around your bed.