Whilom I was browsynge thurgh myn RSS redere, ich happed upon an newe blogge – hyt nys nat altogidir newe, but newely entred into myn orbit – ywriten by noon othere than that noble auctour Geoffrey Chaucer. (Ich am nat makynge thys up, I sweare.) Ywis, yt is soomdel funnye and goode matere for those […]
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Basho – Snow Haiku
The snow we saw together – has it fallen again this year? Adapted from Haiku of Basho.
T.S. Eliot, ‘A Dedication to My Wife’
These are private words addressed to you in public. If only Eliot had lived to see Facebook.
Coleridge and Auden on Puns
Great minds think alike: And Puns, then best when exquisitely bad; (S.T. Coleridge, poem quoted in Letter to John Thelwall, 31 December 1796) Good poets have a weakness for bad puns. (W.H. Auden, ‘The Truest Poetry is the most Feigning’) I’m tempted to call this 1-0 to Auden: he trumps Coleridge for pithiness, memorability and […]
Which Poets Do You Give the Benefit of the Doubt?
I’ve just written an article for the Magma Newsletter, titled ‘Which Poets Do You Give the Benefit of the Doubt?’. The premise is that when we read a poem, our response is mediated by what – if anything – we already know about the poet. So if we encounter a ‘difficult’ poem, then it makes […]