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Aimless Love, Reader and Poetry by Billy Collins
I love the poems of Billy Collins. Quiet and intimate, they are like sharing your thoughts with your spouse or lover when both of you are feeling happy and have nothing to do. You make small talk, exchange jokes, comment on little details. Collins’s poems are similar in nature.
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9/11 in poems and stories
Today is September 11. The day two planes hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists flew into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, bringing them down in flames, killing nearly 3,000 people 13 years ago. I still remember the shock and horror of seeing it happen on television. After the…
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Love poems by Brian Patten
I am reading Brian Patten again – after years. I first read his poems in a Penguin paperback called The Mersey Sound. It was an anthology of poems by three Liverpool poets – Patten, Adrian Henri and Roger McGough. It was one of my favourite books and I have written…
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David and Goliath
We Shall Overcome is one of the greatest civil rights songs. And it is true: some do overcome great odds. But they have to be different – not only courageous and tenacious but also unconventional, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his book, David and Goliath. Underdogs, Misfits and the…
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The Beatles and Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule
Today is the birthday of Malcolm Gladwell. He is 51 today. I have been reading David and Goliath, but my favourite is Outliers because of the chapter headed The 10,000-Hour, which begins with the epigraph, “In Hamburg, we had to play for eight hours.” That’s a quote from John Lennon,…
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The poems of John Betjeman
Today is the birthday of Sir John Betjeman, a 20th century poet who actually wrote in verse. Not free verse but lines that rhymed. Betjeman (August 28, 1906 – May 19, 1984) was popular in his time. His Collected Poems, published in 1958, has sold over two and a quarter…
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Ogden Nash: Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker
During his lifetime, Ogden Nash was the most widely known, appreciated, and imitated American creator of light verse, a reputation that has continued after his death, says the Poetry Foundation. Among other memorable verses he wrote: Reflexions on Ice-BreakingCandyis dandyBut liquoris quicker
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Updike’s last poems
Reading about Robin Williams’ death, I wanted to read what writers wrote in their last days, in their illness or old age, when they knew they were about to die. That is how I came across these poems by my favourite writer, John Updike.
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The love that dared not speak its name
Having returned to Singapore only last week after a long time, I have been catching up with the news. And one of the stories I have been following is the furore over two gay-themed books removed from the children’s section of the National Library. I love the library and am…
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Big Island, great show
Singapore sure knows how to party. The spectacular National Day parade at Marina Bay yesterday dazzled the eyes, warmed the heart and unfolded like a Hollywood blockbuster that had elements of Disney, Star Wars and Broadway musicals spliced together to lay on the mother of all shows.
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