After Larkin’s Annus Mirabilis, (Oulipo: N+Perspective)

The piece is prompted by a risible claim in Understanding Interreligious Relations, one of our central textbooks for IE 102, in which Marianne Moyaert writes that “Interreligious dialogue is a relatively recent phenomenon which is usually identified as starting in 1893.” (Ch9, p193)

I immediately thought of Larkin’s Annus Mirabilis, and could not resist the following:

Religious Intercourse began
In eighteen ninety-three
(A little soon for me)
Between the start of the World’s Fair
And the coup in Hawai'i

Up to then there’d only been
A sort of othering,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started who knows when
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every prayer became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In eighteen ninety-three
(Though far too soon for me)
Between the start of the World’s Fair
And the fall of Matabele.