It feels like heaven,
To be reading PG Wodehouse again,
Hailed by critics one and all,
As the Garden of Eden before the Fall,
Category: Poetry
Categories
Not quite limericks
There is a gentleman in Beijing
By the name of Xi Jinping
With a burning ambition
And steely determination
To be the world’s uncrowned king.
***
Unleash The Poet Within
Is a primer for women
To try their hand at verse,
Though why it’s male-averse
I’ve no notion
Or explanation
For. Is the author,
Wendy Nyemaster,
A literary feminist,
A versifying specialist,
Intent on a sorority
Skilled in prosody,
But absolutely no time
To teach men to rhyme?
Often wry and dry, mocking and wistful in turns, sometimes even bitter and foul-mouthed, Philip Larkin is no Wordsworth, William Blake or Keats. He doesn’t go into raptures about love or nature or into spiritual ecstasy. He isn’t a poet who offers solace or comfort. And yet, as James Booth says in his book, Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love:
Witty, self-assured Wendy Cope seems to be the Jane Austen of verse, writing about love, domesticity and a woman’s life, till her playfulness reminds you of Oscar Wilde.
Poems can be passionate, forthright, mysterious, allusive, elegiac, tender, wistful, as various and beautiful in different ways as women and the earth.
It’s after midnight, the small hours of a new day, the birthday of Dylan Thomas (October 27, 1914 – November 9, 1953). Since he was born on this day, I am reading his poem, In My Craft or Sullen Art.
Ah, the “sensual strut” of Dylan Thomas! I can’t forget those words of his.
I couldn’t recall the poem where he wrote those words, so I searched Google and found it. It’s not one of his best known poems, but those two words from it – “sensual strut” – sum up the appeal of Dylan Thomas, at least to me.
Reading a book of poems can be such a pleasure. There’s the thrill of discovering a poem that absolutely bowls you over, the pleasure of re-reading an old favourite and learning something about the life of the poet or poets whose poetry fills the book. I derived all three pleasures from Life Saving: Why We Need Poetry, Introductions to Great Poets by Josephine Hart.
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Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop
I just read a poem by Emily Dickinson and two poems by Elizabeth Bishop which I had never read before. Emily Dickinson’s poem is about a carriage ride with Death. Elizabeth Bishop’s poems have humour and sadness. I found them in a collection of poems where the poets are introduced by the adman Maurice Saatchi’s late wife, the writer Josephine Hart.
