Poem of the week: Decline and Fall by Nic Aubury
A poetic parody of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Major-General’s Song with its own satirical target – the demotion of classics from the literary curriculum(A cautionary tale which may or may not be sung to...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Casualty by Miroslav Holub
A laconic address both to what was then a totalitarian state, and to the perennial ‘stupid’ violence of humanity, this is as trenchant as everCasualtyThey bring us crushed fingers,mend it, doctor.They...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Horse Fair by George Mackay Brown
Through a child’s bright, clear impressions, Mackay Brown dramatises a lively young mind, and the education system set on deadening itThe Horse Fair Miss Instone said, ‘Children, you were all at the...
View ArticlePoem of the week: from The Bard. A Pindaric Ode by Thomas Gray
With invigorating pace and rhythm, British history is presented as a vivid mix of tragedy and triumphII.1 (Strophe)Weave the warp, and weave the woof,The winding-sheet of Edward’s race.Give ample room,...
View ArticlePoem of the week: In His Other House by Jee Leong Koh
Exile brings severance, but it can also bring confidence: moving from Singapore to New York enabled Koh to find himself as a gay man and a poetIn His Other HouseIn this house there is no need to wait...
View ArticlePoem of the Week: Dead Love by Elizabeth Siddal
Love is a fickle fashionista in a poem which was praised by Christina Rossetti for its ‘cool, bitter sarcasm’, but it is not without tenderness and hopeOh never weep for love that’s deadSince love is...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Tides by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Awash with syntactical and structural fluctuations that embody its central theme, Longfellow’s restless Petrarchan sonnet ranges far beyond technical virtuosityThe TidesI saw the long line of the...
View ArticlePoem of the Week: The Words Collide by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
The Irish poet’s new collection includes the personal – and ultimately political – story of an ‘unletter’d woman’ of some other time dictating a lovely, mysterious and almost unguardedly sexual letter...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Hinds by Kathleen Jamie
Written amid the ‘tremendous energy’ of Scotland’s independence campaign, this supple nature poem might be a livelier than usual image of nationhood The HindsWalking in a waking dreamI watched nineteen...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Vada That by Adam Lowe
Street slang gives vivid, swaggering life to this portrait of a young man keeping up his style while working as a rent boyAunt nell the patter flash and gardy loo!Bijou, she trolls, bold, on...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Claimant by Dai George
An enigmatic narrative about a man, whose status seems to shift from verse to verse, reveals some stubborn social structuresCommoner. Groundling. Outside now with a ticket stubwhile your worships feast...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Lay of the Trilobite by May Kendall
A Victorian satire on evolutionary theory cleverly subverts, through a covert feminist argument, Darwinist ideas about the subjugation of womenA mountain’s giddy height I sought,Because I could not...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Dibs Camp, the Women’s Prison by Choman Hardi
The psychic wounds of an atrocity during the Iran-Iraq war are brought home by the stoic but still anguished voice of a survivorDibs Camp, the Women’s PrisonNabat Fayaq RahmanYou do not die! Not when...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Search by Christine Marendon
A sequence of sharply visual impressions animates a wild animal’s darting mind as it comes upon a hunter – and meets its fateSearchBowls of milk in the rain. A rabbit’s wet head.Here’s someone walking...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Calling Card by Tracey Herd
A eulogy for a young writer who died in a car accident aged 22, this bright poem refuses mourning to insist that her unfinished legacy will endureCalling Card(i.m. Marina Keegan, 1989-2012)At the last...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Admiralty by Osip Mandelstam, translated by Yuri...
A poem about the most beautiful city in the world, and an example of the precise demands of translationThe AdmiraltyIn the Northern capital, dusty populus,Sighing, mantles the time’s transparency,And,...
View ArticlePoem of the Week: Straight Up by Owen Gallagher
A playful and euphemistic poem about masculinity and the festering, phallic fear of sexual inadequacyStraight UpWhen she grasped what I considered big,stuttered Is that it?I fumbled with the...
View ArticlePoem of the week: What is Man? by Waldo Williams, translated by Rowan Williams
A Welsh poem, translated by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, uses the form of catechism to gently address some universal dilemmasWhat is Man?What is living? The broad hall foundbetween narrow...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Silkworms Work and Love Till Death by Peter Porter
Considering his vocation in old age, the poet reflects wryly on what he can expect from a lifetime’s workSilkworms Work and Love Till DeathHe kept a list of poems there were to write,A personal list,...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Visiting Star by Stanley Moss
A trick of the light provides the relaxed occasion for an irreverent contemplation of religious myths Visiting StarI woke at sunrise,fed my dogs, Honie and Margie –to the east a wall of books and...
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