Poem of the week: Ecce Puer by James Joyce
The death of his father and birth of his grandson prompted a return to poetry for Joyce and perhaps his finest work in the mediumBloomsday is 16 June, and what better poem to bring to a celebration of...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Silence by Lotte Kramer
The quiet pastoral of a river scene carries strong undercurrents of traumatic historical memoryA footnote to this week's poem by Lotte Kramer (published in The Rialto, No. 80, Spring-Summer 2014) tells...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The service sector by Lee Harwood
A comic portrait of a seaside town is undercut by unease about the economy that shrinks its residents to mere toys for businessA faintly comic spectre haunts the bright postcard-pastoral of this week’s...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Canada by Katherine Stansfield
A hymn to the elemental power of the country’s raw landscape, this is also a lonely variety of love poemCanada, from Katherine Stansfield’s lively first collection, Playing House, has some of the...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Cat by John Gallas
In this modern take on Baudelaire, a moment of sensual connection with a pet resonates with a lover’s unknowabilityThe New Zealand-born poet John Gallas recently published an enticing and timely...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Christmas (I) by George Herbert
Worldly hospitality becomes an image of divine benevolence in a 17th-century sonnet that will resonate with exhausted December shoppersThis week, the first of George Herbert’s pair of Christmas poems,...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Bodies by Miriam Gamble
An aspect of a horse’s training provides some unsettling analogies with the powers that humans learn to acceptMiriam Gamble’s new collection, Pirate Music, extends her interrogation of human-animal...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Sketches from Edgewater by Ed Dorn
This late poem by the great American documentary poet finds the human spirit singing at the supermarket checkout It’s virtually impossible to sum up a poet’s work with a single poem. When the poet in...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Signal Flags (Without You It’s Chaos) by Lucy Tunstall
A modern woman tries to semaphore her distress to a distant ‘Edwardian’ loverLucy Tunstall, born in London in 1969, published her first collection, The Republic of the Husband a few months ago. She...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Ballad by Philip Fried
Carol Rumens reconnoitres a work that refracts modern psychological warfare through ancient folk traditionsBalladOnce the social structure has thoroughly been mapped out,staff should identify and...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Colored Hats by Gertrude Stein
Some think of Stein’s poetry as a literary version of cubism, but her embrace of ordinary objects here seems more radical – and more mysterious, writes Carol RumensColored HatsColored hats are...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Access Visit by Rory Waterman
An awkward outing with a separated father is recalled – and lived again – in this delicate sonnet, finds Carol RumensAccess VisitYour afternoon pint; my Britvic pineapple juice;a bag of prawn cocktail...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Where the Script Ends by Arundhathi Subramaniam
Carol Rumens looks at a vivid portrait of the distances between cultures, languages and lovers – and the romantic wish to overcome themWhere the Script EndsHis shirt is tangerine,the sky Delft,the...
View ArticlePoem of the week: a selection from Verses for Pictures by William Morris
William Morris’s collection of miniature verses relating to paintings or tapestries is a great introduction to the English designer’s verseWinterI am Winter that do keepLonging safe amidst of sleep:Who...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Modern Female Fashions by Tabitha Bramble
In this witty 18th-century ‘newsprint poem’, the queen of pseudonyms Mary Robinson gently satirises female conventions and conventional femalesModern Female FashionsA FORM, as any taper, fine;A head...
View ArticlePoem of the week: First Love by Joan Margarit
The Catalan poet explores brutality, love and death in a lifelong journey that begins with the secret purchase of a knife as a childFirst LoveIn the dreary Girona of my seven-year-old self,where...
View ArticlePoem of the Week: Material Culture by David C Ward
The American historian and poet personifies a family heirloom, and wonders about the secrets that the mid-18th-century walnut Chippendale desk hints at but refuses to divulge Material CultureWood...
View ArticlePoem of the week: Birder by Gwyneth Lewis
The former national poet of Wales commemorates her aunt in a bright and lively elegy that sees birds play metaphorical and metamorphic rolesBirder(i.m. my aunt Megan 1924-2009)IMidwinter, season for...
View ArticlePoem of the Week: World Trade Center/Mail Runner/’73 by Peter Balakian
The American poet was once a messenger for a Manhattan shipping company, delivering mail to offices in the newly erected twin towers. The 9/11 attacks brought memories coursing to the surfaceWorld...
View ArticlePoem of the week: The Beautiful Librarians by Sean O’Brien
A nostalgic homage to the glory of libraries and librarians harnesses Larkin and Keats to point up our lost visions of social bettermentThe beautiful librarians are dead,The fairly recent graduates who...
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