Category: Poetry
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Auden on moon landing
I just came across this poem by Auden and liked it so much I wanted to share it here. Many of his poems are popular favourites and found in anthologies. For example, In Memory of WB Yeats, September 1939, Refugee Blues, The Unknown Citizen, If I Could Tell You, Look…
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Love poems by Brian Patten
It’s Valentine’s Day. So here are love poems as simple and heart-felt as the finest love songs. Brian Patten knows how to touch hearts and minds. The Mersey Sound, a slim Penguin paperback featuring poems by him, Adrian Henri and Roger McGough published in 1967, is one of the bestselling…
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Any Prince To Any Princess by Adrian Henri
I have loved Adrian Henri ever since I read him in my schooldays in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in the Penguin Modern Poets’ Mersey Sound. The slim red paperback with photo negatives of mop-headed young men on the cover, which included poems by him and two other Liverpool poets Brian Patten…
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James Fenton on Paris
Poems can be sexy and fun. Like this poem by James Fenton. I first read James Fenton way back when in the New Statesman. But let’s get on with the poem. In Paris With You By James Fenton Don’t talk to me of love. I’ve had an earful And I…
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Anthem for Doomed Youth
The First World War is ancient history now. After all, it ended 90 years ago. November 11 marked the 90th anniversary of the Armistice. Remarkably there are still some old soldiers from that long-ago war. Three centenarians representing the British army, navy and air force attended the ceremony in London,…
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A Dylan Thomas poem for the restless
Dylan Thomas’ most famous poems such as Fern Hill or In My Craft Or Sullen Art can be easily found online, but I have never come across this poem on the Net. It’s haunting. Maybe it will appeal to anyone who has moved from one place to another or is…
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Langston Hughes “sings” America
I just heard recordings of Langston Hughes reading two of his poems. He reads beautifully in a well-modulated voice. And the recordings are crystal clear. Click on this link, I, too, sing America, or go to the Poetry Archive website. The recordings were made by the Folkways label in 1955,…
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Auden on Auden
He wanted to be a mining engineer or a geologist. Then just a month after his 15th birthday, he was walking home from school with a friend one day in March 1922 when the friend asked him if he wrote poetry. “No,” he said. “Why don’t you?” asked the friend.…
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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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