Wedge-shadowed gardens
Two superb triologisms in a few lines of Larkin - I like his wedge-shadowed gardens and then the Brontean empyrean...
Technique as dousing
In discussing the technique of writing, Seamus Heaney conjures a water diviner as a metaphor. At first glance far-fetched, as...
Poems for my family 012 – Thomas
Listening time: under 4 minutes.Â
A poet describes the driving force of his art, not one of fame, trophies...
The masonry of verse
A brick-solid image to convey a sense of Anglo-Saxon verse, implying it is precisely constructed and built for the ages. ...
Salt-bleached eyes
From the opening line of Ted Hughes superb 'Warriors of the North', presaging an icy and violent arrival, 'bringing their...
A bulwark against brain-washing
Listening time: under 9 minutes.  Sadly, some things in the state of the world are driving me to spend more...
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...
Thick-witted world
Here's an example of the commentary being arguably more poetic than the poem.  Seamus Heaney's essay on Edwin Muir sums...
Unreel writing
There's something of fairy-tale magic in this idea of writing as a thread teased out from the writer's cupboard of...
A hospital for poets
The 18th century German poet Friedrich Hölderlin considers philosophy as a possible cure - or at least refuge - for...
A poet’s eye view of the poet
I always liked Ezra Pound's definition of the poet as being the 'antenna of the race'. Here Wallace Stevens enlarges...
Poems for my family 008 – Drayton
Listening time: under 5 minutes. One of the greatest love poems in English, this was written by Michael...
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