If you find yourself talking about nature in poetry, it is inevitable before too long that Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) is going to crop up. He was a master: prolific and powerful poet, Nobel Literature Prize laureate, Oxford Professor of Poetry,…
I got rather carried away after I saw the latest Sam Mendes film (in the cinema with friends in the States last October... who'd have believed it possible in these strange lockdown days??). 1917 worked its way into the recesses…
It's almost as if there's a contradiction in terms between the glories of the early English spring and this season of Covid19 horror and fear. UK stats are looking horrendous. And yet, and yet... The natural world is breathing deeply…
Most don't associate Lewis with his poetry. My understanding is, however, he would have far preferred to be known as a poet than almost anything else he wrote (and which brought him countless loyal readers). These three have stood out…
William Blake by Thomas Phillips, 1807 William Blake (1757-1827) was one of a kind. A printer, an illustrator, a painter, a poet, a visionary, a provocateur. And that's just the start of it. But to read some of his verse,…
John Donne as a young man (1595) - National Portrait Gallery, London John Donne's poetry is often difficult, sometimes perplexing and troubling, but always rewarding if closely attended to. He completely loses me quite often. But I keep returning to…
No vlog today instead there's THIS...! Χριστός άνεστη! Αληθώς Ανέστη! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBw99xQUSqk If this video doesn't display, click here Was fun to be part of this great project from the Rabbit Room folks. 40 countries25 languagesI identified: English (American, Canadian and…
This is Holy Saturday. It's an in-between day, a limbo. It is deeply unsettling, especially if you need your world to be categorisable, identifiable, graspable. This day is anything but. Full of mystery, full of pain and fears. If that…
It is Good Friday so the subject matter for the day's reading presented itself easily enough. Choosing what to read, however, was a very different matter. There is so much. In the end, I plumped for a profound and moving…
For this Maundy Thursday, here's a favourite purple passage. If I'd been on the ball, I would have obviously put the Alan Paton passage tonight. But I've not (and probably never have) been on the proverbial ball (proverbiball?). John Bunyan's…
Maya Angelou, photograph by Bridget Lacombe (Smithsonian, NPG) Today, the voice of an angel. Nope, I don't have delusions of celestial proportions. I'm referring to the great African-American writer, Maya Angelou (1928-2014) who died not so long ago. In fact,…
William Hogarth, The Rake's Progress: The Asylum (1732) Christopher Smart (The Pembroke Portrait) I know little about Christopher Smart (1722-1771), apart from the fact that the suffered the torments, like his almost contemporary William Cowper, of an eighteenth-century asylum. But…