At a semi-regular Zoom quarantini with Ann Goldstein and Mary Norris, something I look forward to all week (although what’s a week anymore?), I learned from Ann that Mary had recently written about The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Big Read. What’s that? I asked, intrigued. Mary told me, humbly and with a laugh, to skip her article and just go to the site. I don’t recommend this course of action. Read Mary’s article here first and then listen, or, as I did, swoon, to Jeremy Irons’ glorious recitation of the opening to one of the greatest poems of all time, then savor the subsequent readings by the likes of Jeanette Winterson, Willem Dafoe, Hilary Mantel, Tilda Swinton, Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithful, and many more luminaries of the arts at your leisure.
And, fittingly enough, on my run this morning I came across this–not quite an albatross but the bird was certainly having a feast:
