All-encompassing flow
The cadence of this metaphor has the abundance and freshness of clear, flowing water. It likens Virgil, whom Dante views...
Of wine and poetry
Here we have a poet and a vintner who connects the magic between wine and poetry. Wine can be poetic...
To be forever on the road
A marvelous metaphor to describe poetry and its relationship to speaking; I like this notion of realising that speaking is...
The strangest of times
Been enjoying the rhyming recitals of Probably Tomfoolery, and in particular this one, 'The Strangest of Times', see him perform...
And this is anger
Dante's description of Anger is gloriously conveyed in Clive James' translation by the delicious echo of 'plots and plans' in...
Well-ordered spirit
Three simple words perhaps summing up the pinnacle of much spiritual seeking, especially if once reached, it spills over with...
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...
Fate goes as ever fate must
This translation by Seamus Heaney rings like a proverb on the immutability of fate. Elsewhere, he brings it up close and...
The age of iron
The Four Ages described in Ted Hughes' muscular re-telling of Ovid's tales, begins with the Golden Age...
The first golden age
Continuing his retelling of the myth of Creation, Ted Hughes reminds us of a first golden age...
Scum-skinned tide
Something alarmingly contemporary about this polluted surface in Dante's Inferno, especially when he discerns, through the miasma, dead souls fleeing.
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The last of your life…
Hart Crane died very young, making this comment all the more poignant. And if we ‘wrote each poem’ or letter,...
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