Frances Wilson

Titanoraks

Were we to list the Titanic’s legacies, at the top would come the effect of the ship on writing. The sinking of the world’s largest metaphor turned everyone into a writer; those who had never before opened a book or penned a line now found themselves visited by the muse. Hundreds of poems by the public appeared in special Titanic anthologies. Because national grief is endlessly forgiving of literary crimes, lines such as

The steamer Titanic, was unsinkable,

Or so they thunk,

For on her first trip out,

She plumb done sunk 

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