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Miles to go, indeed.

Sometimes a line from a poem floats into my consciousness and prompts me to go back to the original work. This happened recently with a line from Frost’s famous poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The line in question is “miles to go before I sleep.” After going online, I found that I am not the only person who finds this line evocative. None other than Celine Dion (?!?) has recorded a song called “Miles to Go (Before I Sleep),” which claims to be based/inspired by the poem.  To make the situation even better or worse depending upon your perspective, the lyricist of said song is the 80’s juggernaut of wearin’ sunglasses at night Corey Hart. I don’t want to make any broad generalizations about Canadians based upon this dubious teaming, particularly when Canada has given us Leonard Cohen, the New Pornographers and Sloan, but this song does seem like a classic case of poetry abuse. I post the song here for you to listen to at your own risk. This particular youtube clip includes the added features of the lyrics, which have nothing to do with the original poem, and a montage of new age images that need to be seen to be believed. It is time to stop the denial and bring poetry abuse into the light. If you know of similar poetic misadventures, or even an artful inclusion of poetry in song, please let us know.

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