I know why the phrase ‘like shining from shook foil’ is in my head — because I was putting some foil over a dish of coronation chicken. More peculiar is the other thing that’s been going around my head this morning:
“Bush and Saddam sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G”.
I think it’s unlikely that either of the Presidents Bush have ever snogged Saddam Hussein, and even if they have, a tree would be an unorthodox venue. But I suppose you never know.
6 replies on “shook foil”
I happened to come across this post while browsing through Technorati. I just wanted to say that I’ve never heard the phrase “like shining from shook foil” before. Where does that come from?
It’s from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins:
God’s Grandeur
THE world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
i was discussing this poem with my students, and they made the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that this entire poem is about a divine barbecue. And the evidence?
1. ‘flame out’
2. ‘shook foil’
3. ‘the ooze of oil’
4. ‘rod’ (ie skewer)
5. ‘warm breast’
6. ‘wings’
That totally cracked me up.
mmmm… just now, a barbecue would be divine.
heh. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. good’un. haven’t seen you around PFFA much lately – it seems like everyone is really busy for one reason or another. hope to see you back soon.
Oh well, I pop in most days, but I’m not actually writing any poetry at the moment.