Poems for my family 007 – Carlos Williams
Listening time: under 3 minutes.The lovely opening line of this poem by William Carlos Williams creates a surprising contrast between the stillness of a rose and the tumult of war. The rest of the poem picks up, in rhythm and imagery, on the rose, filling out like a...
Merry Christmas dear kind readers
Dear Kind Readers,WritingRedux wishes you a Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and in any case a hefty dose of Peace on Earth along with an injection of Goodwill to All, to boost your all round resilience in these trying times. In addition, and more specifically,...
Poems for my family 006 – Cavafy
This poem has been in my mental saddlebags for about a quarter of a century. I can’t remember how I came across it but after a few readings it imprinted itself on my memory. It’s by a Greek poet, Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933), and draws on one of the...
Poems for my family 005 – McGee
Inspired by a high altitude test flight, this dazzling poem has added poignancy because John Gillespie McGee (1922-41) died soon after in an air collision with his Spitfire. It conveys the sweeping thrill and ethereal freedom of flying to great heights, with the plane...
Poems for my family 004 – Durrell
Listening time: under 5 minutes. Durrell has long been a favourite writer and poet. When I first read his Alexandria Quartet in my twenties, I went back to the beginning and started again, something I’ve only ever done for one other book (The Tale of Genji). I...
The strangest of times
Been enjoying the rhyming recitals of Probably Tomfoolery, and in particular this one, ‘The Strangest of Times’, see him perform it here. Infused with gentle humour, warmth and kindness, they are a calming, hopeful way to wrap up the week, or the day, or...
Imp
Before reading Drury’s splendid biography of the poet George Herbert, I knew ‘imp’ only as a small being of occasional mischievousness.But it is also a falconry term, which the OED defines as: ‘to engraft feathers in a damaged wing to restore...
Love bade me…
One of the most beautiful English poems, of great simplicity and generosity, by George Herbert. Much of his poetry is religious but his expansiveness means that they can and do still resonate with people who aren’t particularly religious. Love features largely...
All the details of the tree
A fine injunction to a writer, first to face truth and then to give unhidden all the details. Neither is easy.’Face truth, wrapped in a puzzle. …You’ll tellYour tale in writing? Make sure that you giveUnhidden, all the details of the tree.’...
Scum-skinned tide
Something alarmingly contemporary about this polluted surface in Dante’s Inferno, especially when he discerns, through the miasma, dead souls fleeing.”Now train your gaze across that scum-skinned tide,”He said to me as he set my eyes free,”To...
Beware rash judgement
Dante is cautioned to beware those who pass speedy judgement – ‘Anyone and his wife’ who think in witnessing a deed they can securely make assumptions about its karmic consequences.’So we should be strict towardsAll people when they judge at...
Yours to win, not lose
These racing monosyllables have the pace and certainty of one who runs, and lives, as if he can only win. I have a certain admiration for such bounding assurance.’But this one ran as if the race were hisTo win, not lose. As his life was, and is.”… e...
