Remember, like it or not
Maxim Gorky's (1868-1936) childhood was scored with regular beatings, some life-threatening, by his grandfather. His resilience, emotional as much as...
The stream of feeling
Casaubon comes late to marriage and having decided upon it, dives headlong into the expected stream of feeling, only to...
From pantheon to palate
A piled up commentary of poets on poets: Heaney on Mandelstam on Dante. Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938), who died in uncertain...
Ripening writing
In this comment on Zbigniew Herbert's Report from the Besieged City (title of both a poem and a poetry collection),...
Dark-named destiny
Another term for death, the fate of Asios who, horse-proud, insisted on driving his chariot into the fray where he...
Sea-boot rough
Winter sea hoarseness and tight-swallowing soreness.
...‘My throat’s as rough as the inside of a sea-boot.’
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...
Swarming possibility
An unusual image, of possibility swarming like larvae, ready to burst into butterfly winged realization.
... to...
A piercing sound
A high, piercing pipe sound likened to midges harassing the air, this simile makes me think of the horrifying tsssssssss...
How clever can you get?
I liked these piled up and shamelessly outrageous examples of cleverness, although of their various skills, the first is the...
Like a grove of nettles
An original way to describe a covey of great-coated soldiers packed on a boat.
The passageways was...
Language in orbit
A poet can provide the initial lift-off, but then the poem enters its own orbit and runs on its own...
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