Tag Archives: poetry

A #poem to read in the bath… ‘I loved her like the leaves’

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The sense of loss in this Japanese poem is unquenchable. Written by Kakinonoto Hitomaro in 7th century Japan, it speaks of emptiness so great there is no hope or comfort. Hitomaro was a poet of the Asuka period [538-710], serving as court poet to the Empress Jitō, and is considered to be one of the four greatest poets in Japanese history along with Fujiwara no Teika, Sōgi and Bashō.

Kakinonoto Hitomaro

Kakinomoto Hitomaro by Kikuchi Yosai

‘I loved her like the leaves,
The lush green leaves of spring
That pulled down the willows
on the bank’s edge
where we walked
while she was of this world.
I built my life on her.
But man cannot flout
the laws of this world.
To the shimmering wide fields
hidden by the white cloud,
white as white silk scarf
she soared away like the morning bird,
hid from our world like the setting sun.
The child, the gift she left behind –
he cries for food; but always
finding nothing that I might give him,
I pick him up and hold him in my arms.
On the pillow where we lay,
My wife and I, as one,
I pass the daylight lonely till the dusk,
the black night sighing till the dawn.
I grieve and grieve and know no remedy.
I ache and know no road where I might meet her.

[NB. This poem features in two editions of poems that I own and, owing to different translations, there are variations]

The poem features in many anthologies, including my own The Picador Book of Funeral Poems and The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse.
Amazon


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

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘I loved her like the leaves’ by Kakinonoto Hitomaro https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3dY via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘My Mother’

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I was hooked from the first line here, I think because of the familiarity of the cornflake cake. So what came next was a surprise, not something my mother said to me when I made her a cake! This is My Mother by Ruby Robinson [below] from Every Little Sound. Published in 2016, Robinson’s first collection of poems was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Forward Prize for ‘Best First Collection’, and the TS Eliot Prize for ‘Best Collection’. Ruby Robinson

Here is the first stanza of My Mother. 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.

‘She said the cornflake cake made her day,
she said a man cannot be blamed for being
unfaithful: his heart is not in tune with his
extremities and it’s just the way his body
chemistry is. She said all sorts of things.’
Source: Poetry (October 2014)

Read more about Ruby Robinson here.

Ruby Robinson

 

‘Every Little Sound’ by Ruby Robinson [UK: Pavilion Poetry]

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘Runaways’ by Daniela Nunnari
‘Tulips’ by Wendy Cope
‘Cloughton Wyke I’ by John Wedgwood Clarke

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘My Mother’ by Ruby Robinson https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3eq via @SandraDanby

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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