With the news that HBO will be producing movies based on Faulkner novels, we wonder if poetry will ever be adapted in the same way. PBS recently aired an adapted poem, The Song of Lunch, as part of its Masterpiece Contemporary series. The film is appropriately PBS-style, with British accents (Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson play the two main roles), and deep, unexpressed longings.
But what if HBO were to air an adapted poem? What would fit best alongside Boardwalk Empire, Sex and the City, The Wire, and The Sopranos? Here are our nominations:
Robert Frost’s “Home Burial”: Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks could play the nonromantic couple, giving them a chance to stretch their range and reach for the Emmy. The screenplay would write itself, since the poem’s a dialogue, and a mysterious spade and melodramatic violin music would create a great trailer.
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Recuerdo” (“We were very tired, we were very merry— / We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry”): James Franco could dress in drag and eat a pear, and Meryl Streep would be stunning as the “shawl-covered head” at the end of the poem.
Robert Lowell’s “Skunk Hour”: Who doesn’t love a film with skunks in it? Though Pepe le Pew wouldn’t be right for the part of supporting animal, Daniel Craig could play the tormented man who voyeuristically watches for “love-cars” at a look-out point and realizes that his mind’s not right.
What obvious adaptation-ready poems have we missed, blog readers?
