Category Archives: Poetry

A poem to read in the bath… ‘The Unthinkable’

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This poem grabbed me from the first line. It has action, it has colour, it has place. I could see the purple door, I could see the beach. And I wanted to write my own story about it. This is ‘The Unthinkable’ by Simon Armitage [below], included in his latest anthology The Unaccompanied. Simon Armitage

Here is the first stanza of The Unthinkable. Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘A huge purple door washed up in the bay overnight,
its paintwork blistered and peeled from weeks at sea.
The town storyteller wasted no time in getting to work:
the beguiling, eldest girl of a proud, bankrupt farmer
had slammed that door in the face of a Freemason’s son,
who in turn had bulldozed both farm and family
over the cliff, except for the girl, who lived now
by the light and heat of a driftwood fire on a beach.’
Source: Poetry (May 2013)

Simon Armitage

 

‘The Unaccompanied’ by Simon Armitage [UK: Faber]

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘Digging’ by Seamus Heaney
‘Alone’ by Dea Parkin
‘A thousand years, you said’ by Lady Heguri

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘The Unthinkable’ by Simon Armitage https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3ek via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘A thousand years, you said’

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Written in 8th century Japan, this poem speaks of the longing of love shadowed by impending death, and it is as relevant today as it was then. I discovered this poem in The Picador Book of Funeral Poems, and then stumbled on it again in an old paperback on my bookshelf, The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse. It was written by Lady Heguri in mid-late eighth century. No details are known of her, except that her poems are addressed to Yakamochi.

‘A thousand years, you said,
As our two hearts melted.
I look at the hand you held
And the ache is too hard to bear.’

 

‘The Picador Book of Funeral Poems’ ed. by Don Paterson
Amazon UK

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘Runaways’ by Daniela Nunnari
‘Winter Song’ by Wilfred Owen
‘The Cinnamon Peeler’ by Michael Ondaatje

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘A thousand years, you said’ by Lady Heguri https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3dS via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Because I could not stop for Death’

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This lyrical poem by Emily Dickinson sees the poet meet Death who, as a gentleman caller, takes a leisurely carriage drive with her. It was first published posthumously under the title ‘The Chariot’ in Poems: Series 1 in 1890, the edition assembled and edited by her friends Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Here are the first two verses.
‘Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility.’

The poem has since been set to music by Aaron Copland as the twelfth song of his cycle The Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

 

‘The Picador Book of Funeral Poems’ ed. by Don Paterson [UK: Picador]

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘Happiness’ by Stephen Dunn
‘Lost Acres’ by Robert Graves
‘The Roses’ by Katherine Tempest

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Because I could not stop for Death’ by Emily Dickinson https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3dG via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Along the field as we came by’

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Best known for A Shropshire Lad, the poems of AE Housman reflect the dooms and disappointments of youth in the English countryside. Popular throughout the Victorian and Edwardian periods running up to the Great War, this two stanza poem by Housman transitions from first romantic love to death and grief, followed by hope and new love. It was his simplicity of style that appealed, and his nostalgic nature settings.

Here is the first verse.

‘Along the field as we came by
A year ago, my love and I,
The aspen over stile and stone
Was talking to itself alone.
‘Oh, who are these that kiss and pass?
A country lover and his lass;
Two lovers looking to be wed;
And time shall put them both to bed,
But she shall lie with earth above,
And he beside another love.’

 

‘The Picador Book of Funeral Poems’ ed. by Don Paterson [UK: Picador]

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘Cloughton Wyke I’ by John Wedgwood Clarke
‘Elegy’ by Carol Ann Duffy
‘Sometimes and After’ by Hilda Doolittle

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Along the field as we came by’ by AE Housman https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3dN via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘After a Row’ by Tom Pickard #poetry #nature

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Winter Migrants by poet Tom Pickard is a collection of poetry and prose, starting with the prize-winning sequence ‘Lark & Merlin’, an erotic pursuit over the hills and fells of the poet’s Northern-English homeland. In truth, I could have selected anything from this slim volume, but ‘After a Row’ just caught my mood today.

Tom Pickard

[photo: carcanet.co.uk]

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘After a Row’
A lapwing somersaults spring,
Flips over winter and back.

After a fast walk – my limbs
The engine of thought – up long hills
Where burn bubbles into beck and clough to gill

Tom Pickard

BUY THE BOOK

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘Sometimes and After’ by Hilda Doolittle
‘Cloughton Wyke 1’ by John Wedgwood Clarke
‘Forgetfulness’ by Hart Crane

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘After a Row’ by @tompickardpoet http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2UD via @SandraDanby

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A poem to read in the bath… ‘Tulips’

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Anyone who enjoys gardening understands this poem, the feeling of planning for a garden of the future, digging, sowing, hoping, and then the temporary feeling of joy when the flowers appear. To be replaced again by the annual cycle of planning, digging and sowing. Wendy Cope obviously has a garden.

Wendy Cope

[photo: Stevie McGarrity Alderdice]

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘Tulips’
Months ago, I dreamed of a tulip garden,
Planted, waited, watched for their first appearance,
Saw them bud, saw greenness give way to colours,
Just as I’d planned them.

Wendy Cope

 

‘If I Don’t Know’ by Wendy Cope [UK: Faber] 

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘The Boy Tiresias’ by Kate Tempest
‘The Roses’ by Katherine Towers
‘Elegy of a Common Soldier’ by Dennis B Wilson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Tulips’ by Wendy Cope http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Uo via @SandraDanby

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A poem to read in the bath… ‘The Death of the Hat’

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Billy Collins is a favourite poet of mine, he is so good at making the ordinary everyday things suddenly become personal and touching. So true.

Billy Collins

[photo: poetryfoundation.org]

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘The Death of the Hat’
Once every man wore a hat.

In the ashen newsreels,
the avenues of cities
are broad rivers flowing with hats.

The ballparks swelled
with thousands of strawhats,
brims and bands,
rows of men smoking
and cheering in shirtsleeves.

Hats were the law.
They went without saying.
You noticed a man without a hat in a crowd.

I challenge you to read the very last stanza [not shown here] without a tear in your eye as he transitions from hats to the loss of a loved one.

Read two other poems by Billy Collins which I love:-
The Dead
On Turning Ten

Billy Collins

 

‘Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes’ by Billy Collins [UK: Picador] 

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘Japanese Maple’ by Clive James
‘My Heart Leaps Up’ by William Wordsworth
‘Oxfam’ by Carol Ann Duffy

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘The Death of the Hat’ by Billy Collins via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-26r

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A poem to read in the bath… ‘We Needed Coffee But…’

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There is something mesmeric about the rhythm of this poem by Matthew Welton which draws you onwards, like being tugged forward by the rope in a tug-of-war competition without your own momentum.

Matthew Welton

[photo: carcanet]

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘We Needed Coffee But…’

We needed coffee but we’d got ourselves convinced that the later we left it the better it would taste, and, as the country grew flatter and the roads became quiet and dusk began to colour the sky, you could guess from the way we retuned the radio and unfolded the map or commented on the view that the tang of determination had overtaken our thoughts, and when, fidgety and untalkative but almost home, we drew up outside the all-night restaurant, it felt like we might just stay in the car, listening to the engine and the gentle sound of the wind

Matthew Weldon is from Nottingham, UK. In 2003 he received the Jerwood-Aldeburgh First Collection Prize for The Book of Matthew [published by Carcanet], which was named a Guardian Book of the Year.

Listen to Matthew Welton read from ‘We Needed Coffee But…’ below.

Matthew Welton‘We Needed Coffee But…’ by Matthew Welton [UK: Carcanet] 

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘The Boy Tiresias’ by Kate Tempest
‘Runaways’ by Daniela Nunnari
‘The Roses’ by Katherine Towers

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘We Needed Coffee but…’ by @mtthwwltn via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2up

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A poem to read in the bath… ‘The Boy Tiresias’

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You may have heard of Kate Tempest [below], the rapper born in South East London, who has gone on to write poetry and plays and perform at Glastonbury.

Kate Tempest

[photo picador.com]

‘The Boy Tiresias’ is one poem from Hold Your Own, a collection about youth and experience, sex and love, wealth and poverty.

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘The Boy Tiresias’
Watch him, kicking a tennis ball,
keeping it up
the boy on the street in his sister’s old jumper.
Watch him,
Absorbed in the things that he does.
Crouched down,
Observing the worms and the slugs.

He’s shaping their journeys
placing his leaves in their paths,
playing with fate.
Godcub.
Sucking on sherbet.
Riding his bike in the sunlight.
Filmic.
Perfect.’

There is a sadness at the heart of Hold Your Own, it is clear that Tempest draws on her own childhood for her poetry which is simple and at the same time rich.

For more about Kate Tempest’s poetry and music, visit her website.
Read a review of Hold Your Own, published in The Guardian.

Kate Tempest

 

‘Hold Your Own’ by Kate Tempest [UK: Picador]

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘Digging’ by Seamus Heaney
‘Poems’ by Ruth Stone
‘Winter Song’ by Wilfred Owen

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘The Boy Tiresias’ from HOLD YOUR OWN by @katetempest via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2tV

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A poem to read in the bath… ‘The Roses’

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The Remedies is the second poetry collection by Katharine Towers. Such an economy of words, beautiful, never a superfluous thought. Concise, moving, piercingly beautiful. Katharine TowersMy favourite is ‘The Roses’. Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘The Roses’

Because my father will not stand again
beneath these swags of Himalayan Mush
nor stare for hours to see which stems are safe…

This poem is about remembering, about loss, about family. And roses.

Read more about Katherine Towers’ poetry at her website.

Katharine Towers

‘The Remedies’ by Katharine Towers [UK: Picador] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Sometimes and After’ by Hilda Doolitte
‘Elegy of a Common Soldier’ by Dennis B Wilson
‘Lost Acres’ by Robert Graves

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘The Roses’ by Katharine Towers via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2rI

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