Sweet-running river
Flowing like the sweet-running river it evokes, a meandering metaphor for Hector's strength and movement, likened to a thoroughbred horse...
Roiling poetry
Written by a poet, this suggests that poems aren't written, but rather roil and form of their own volition. Having...
To see at a distance
Thoreau has many striking things to say about poets, and even if I can't seize on them as definitive or...
Poetry as redemption
Harry Eyres’ book is as much about the nature of poetry as about Horace, and I was struck by this...
Being never wholly so
This line from a poem concerns being and being written or heard about. If it isn't written (and presumably, read)...
A luminous spot in Chicago
What makes a city great? What makes a civilization? How about a bright, quiet, dazzling new building in the heart...
Rules of engagement
Where I have failed to appreciate some of the most enduringly esteemed works of literature, it has often been due...
Poetry as a boat
Another maritime metaphor in Heaney's introduction to a poem set in a sea-world. The ‘big quay’ of language and literature can...
On memorizing poetry
A few years ago I wrote this piece on memorising poetry. For World Poetry Day, I share it here in the hope it will...
Something more pressing
Yes, you can find a thousand things more urgent than writing, or at least more insistent. Writing for this...
Diving in head first
Keats was a bold player, keeping his eye determinedly focussed on achieving enduring greatness, not on the fads and fashions...
Freedom gained?
What is freedom? Options? Room for manoeuvre? Time? Carte blanche and blank cheques? Absence of censorship? Self-mastery? Purpose?
Recently I’ve...
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