Category: Books
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The Longly-Weds Know
It’s Valentine’s Day. So here’s a poem to all those lucky couples who like me and my wife have been married for decades. Many happy returns of the day! The Longly-Weds Know By Leah Furnas That it isn’t about the Golden Anniversary at all,But about all the unremarkable yearsthat Hallmark…
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Dylan Thomas and Fern Hill
I was surprised to find I had never posted my favourite poem here. I had quoted a couple of lines a long time ago, but never posted the whole poem. The poem: Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas. I have loved it ever since I read it in my schooldays in…
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The Inheritance Of Loss
The Inheritance Of Loss by Kiran Desai The Inheritance Of Loss, which won the 2006 Man Booker Prize, is like the world itself, both tragic and comic and with moments of great beauty. The protagonists are misfits one and all — Sai the orphaned teenager, her grandfather the retired judge,…
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India: A partial story
Temptations Of The West by Pankaj Mishra A young man at an Indian university library chanced upon a book that changed his whole life. He wanted to read everything by the author and all the things he had written about. He ended up in America, writing for the New Yorker,…
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Sex and children: Two poems
One of these is a famous poem by one of the finest 20th century English poets, the other written by a contemporary American poet. Here are the opening lines from both poems. Guess which one is English, which one American. One is witty, the other… well, I hope you enjoy…
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John Fuller’s Valentine
I posted Auden’s beautiful love poem last night from a selection of his verse edited by the poet, John Fuller. The name sounded familiar. I wondered if he was related to the poet, Roy Fuller, whom I read long ago in the ’70s. Checking on the net, I found, yes,…
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Romantic Auden
Nothing touches the heart more than a beautiful love poem. And here is WH Auden at his finest. He wrote it in 1940 when he was 32 or 33 years old. The poet John Fuller in his selection of Auden’s poems gives no further information, no annotations. But it is…
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Dorothy Parker’s reasons to live
The 13th of the month is as good a day as any for an affirmation of life. Grin and bear it. RésuméDorothy Parker Razors pain you;Rivers are damp;Acids stain you;And drugs cause cramp.Guns aren’t lawful;Nooses give;Gas smells awful;You might as well live. Now read her New York Times obituary published…
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So long Fraser, hello Flashman
All good things must come to an end. There will be no more adventures of Flashman. His creator, George MacDonald Fraser, has died of cancer at the age of 82. The late, unlamented British empire has lost its funniest chronicler. There can be few more entertaining accounts of the British…
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A poem about a computer
I just came across this poem about a Mac (it had to be a Mac) but it could apply to a PC too. Anyone who blogs, surfs the Internet or is otherwise hopelessly addicted to computers will be able to identify with this poem. We can’t do without our computers.…
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