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On Julia’s Clothes and 99 other most popular poems
This must be one of the shortest, heavily anthologized poems in the English language. On Julia’s Clothes, by Robert Herrick, runs to only six lines. But, witty and playful, this 17th century poem is one of the 100 most anthologized poems in the English language, according to the Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry. Here are […]
andrew marvell, arthur quiller-couch, blake, browning, clothes, columbia, dylan thomas, english, george herbert, gerard manley hopkins, granger’s, john donne, julia, keats, oxford, poem, randall jarrell, richard lovelace, robert frost, robert herrick, shakespeare, shelley, tennyson, verse, wordsworth, yeats -
Essential Pleasures: Homage to Hips
I have been reading Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud, edited by Robert Pinksy. Readers will find plenty of old masterpieces here, such as Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold and Ulysses by Tennyson; but, as Pinsky says in his introduction: "I have also worked hard to come up with good poems […]
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Two poems about Singapore
One poem leads to another. Reading Reflecting on the Merlion: An Anthology of Poems edited by Edwin Thumboo and Yeow Kai Chai, and co-edited by Enoch Ng, Isa Kamari, and Seetha Lakshmi at the public library, I wanted to read more poems about Singapore. And, as luck would have it, I came across another anthology, […]
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A book of poems about the Merlion
At the pubic library, I came across a book of poems entirely about the Merlion, the lion-headed, fish-tailed icon of Singapore. The book is called Reflecting on the Merlion: An Anthology of Poems. It’s edited by Edwin Thumboo and Yeow Kai Chai, and co-edited by Enoch Ng, Isa Kamari, and Seetha Lakshmi. It was published […]
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A New York minute with Billy Collins
The Singapore River isn’t the Hudson But it has a homely charm of its own, The Botanic Gardens no Central Park But a tranquil, sylvan landmark Well worth a visit or two. Life in Singapore is nothing to rue Unless you make much ado About the Straits Times Being no New York Times. Then you’re […]
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Billy Collins’ witty Obituaries
Perhaps the best known poem on old age written in the last 50 years is Philip Larkin’s The Old Fools, which appeared in High Windows, published in 1973. It rails against old age, beginning with the verse: What do they think has happened, the old fools, To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose […]
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Billy Collins on his old typewriter
I am reading the poems of Billy Collins for the first time. And what can I say? Imagine Keats living into middle age, developing a dry wit and writing poems about domestic life without rhymes – but still showing flashes of his youthful romanticism. That’s Billy Collins. Collins, who was the US Poet Laureate from […]
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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 Stranger, and Lay Your Sleeping […]
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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 poetry anthologies of all time, […]
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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 and Roger McGough, has sold […]
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