Poem of the week: Clock a Clay by John Clare
Clare struggled in the Romantic age, but this attentive study to a small creature leaves one dreaming of the hero he might have been in our era1In the cowslips peeps I lye Hidden from the buzzing fly...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Iota and Theta … by Osip Mandelstam
The flautist’s art becomes a means to convey the mortal challenges faced by the artist in a totalitarian regimeIota and theta, the fluteof the Greeks gives no recitals –unsculptured and short of...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Break, Break, Break by Alfred Tennyson
A sharply anguished lament for the poet’s beloved friend and inspiration Arthur HallamBreak, Break, BreakBreak, break, break,On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!And I would that my tongue could utterThe...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Reflection by Peter Scupham
A peaceful look back at a ‘high summer’ and its evanescenceReflectionLooking at blue, looking through blue,he watched slow floaters rise and die;flowers were talkative that high summer,their fluid...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Sonnet LXX by Charlotte Smith
A lonely poet has been warned against a wandering ‘lunatic’ but feels more envy of his mental state than fear On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because it was...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Legend by Hart Crane
Written in the 1920s, this is a young man’s daring and defiant assertion of his sexualityLegendAs silent as a mirror is believedRealities plunge in silence by ...Continue reading...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Sonnet on Reading Burns’ To a Mountain Daisy by Helen Maria...
A fierce defence of his battles with ‘adverse fortune’ suggests Robert Burns was invigorated by the confrontationContinue reading...
View ArticlePoem of the week: In Winter the Steep Lane by Peter Sansom
A spare, haunting depiction of a tricky winter walk points the way to everyone’s final destinationis often icyone in four, and todayit brings meto my hands anddodgy kneesContinue reading...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Villanelle of His Lady’s Treasures by Ernest Dowson
A fin-de-siècle poet’s attempt to retain the beauty of a lost love is built around unsettlingly violent imageryI took her dainty eyes, as wellAs silken tendrils of her hair:And so I made a...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Ballad by William Soutar
A tragic folk romance is told in fresh, vivid Scots that is both deeply traditional and awake to a much changed modern worldO! shairly ye hae seen my loveDoun whaur the waters wind:He walks like ane...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Sunflower by Dora Greenwell
An allegory of Christian devotion also sounds a lot like a lyric of unrequited loveTill the slow daylight pale,A willing slave, fast bound to one above,I wait; he seems to speed, and change, and fail;I...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Spell by Greta Stoddart
A childlike curiosity opens up questions of what we can and cannot knowOnly this morning you swore you sawsomething swift and white fly through the nightand land on the gate in the dark.Continue...
View ArticlePoem of the week: To Mistress Margaret Hussey by John Skelton
An implausibly perfect list of womanly virtues is kept afloat with genial buoyancyMerry Margaret,As midsummer flower,Gentle as a falconOr hawk of the tower:Continue reading...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Mist by Maurice Rutherford
A haunting poem in which a mysterious backstory of private loss is bound with nature in a thickening mist and an absence of birdsThought is reluctant today,tentative for what we knowbut cannot clearly...
View ArticlePoem of the week: I Am Not A Falconer by Caroline Bird
An abandoned lover tries not to take their distress too seriouslyI am standing in this fieldHolding my glove in the airShould I whistle?I can’t whistleWill she get lost?Take shelter in a charming...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Revolt of Mother by Alice Duer Miller
Man’s claim to be expert in all things – including how to be a woman – is dismantled with devastating sarcasm(“Every true woman feels …” – Speech of almost any Congressman)Continue reading...
View ArticlePoem of the week: George Moses Horton, Myself by George Moses Horton
The poet, who lived most of his life in slavery, uses his own name to title a stirring hymn to freedomI feel myself in needOf the inspiring strains of ancient lore,My heart to lift, my empty mind to...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Poetry for Supper by RS Thomas
The contested virtues of spontaneity and slog, when it comes to producing art, spark off a lively pub debate‘Listen, now, verse should be as naturalAs the small tuber that feeds on muck And grows...
View ArticlePoem of the week: No Remedy by Drummond Allison
A complicated meditation on vexed personal relationships is leavened with energetic inventionNo remedy, my retrospective friend,We’ve found no remedy;Nor from these fields the briared and barbed wire...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Claim by Jane Draycott
A meditation on the arduous labour of the gold rush resonates with modern-day environmental destructionSo many came to that portionof the claim, the water not too deep there,and left with tiny grains...
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