You know that “Poetry in Motion” junk they have sometimes in the subway? Well, if you don’t you’re not really missing out on anything, because most of the poems they pick seem to be totally bland and pointless. And the one that caught my eye latest, William Butler Yeats’ “A Coat”, seems to be no exception.

The first few lines though caught my attention. Not for their stunning mastery of language, but because they reminded me of something:

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;

Junior or senior year of college (I forget which) my once-upon-a-time fiancee made a coat which matched this description almost to a T. And I’m all but certain she never read or heard about this poem. The coat was an elaborately worked, floor-length item which was embroidered, dyed, and every other technique under the sun, and the whole thing was these little pictures of mythological/magical happenings which she had made up. Strange that Yeats seems to have foreseen this coat’s creation way back in 1914. Strange indeed.