Tag: poetry
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Fabrication
Good morning! A poem today. Earlier this week saw the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Wordsworth – a poet who has, for the past couple of centuries, often set the ideological terms of the writing of landscape and nature. I’ve been thinking about Wordsworth’s particular “Romantic” landscapes quite a lot in recent months,…
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a coat for falling
Good morning! Are there garments in your wardrobes from which a particular event or association is difficult to shake? I have friends, for example, who after wearing a certain dress at a funeral, have found that putting it on again becomes difficult. I’m a particularly garment-attached person, and there’s perhaps no garment to which I’m…
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snipe
Good morning, all! How is the weather in your part of the world? It’s a lovely, crisp morning here, with all the birds in full voice. As an early riser, at this time of the year it’s one of my greatest pleasures to go for a walk at first light, when the world’s awash with…
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walking words
Good morning, everyone. Today I thought I’d share with you one of the poems I recently read at Write by the Sea. I’m someone who loves walking, and since my stroke in 2010, I’m also someone who has a disabled body. If you’ve read Handywoman, you might remember that a really formative moment in my…
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Thursday I got nothing
Hello everyone, it’s Tom here. I’m dropping by to tell you all about my latest photographic project – Thursday I got nothing: a collection of images inspired by George Mackay Brown’s poem, Beachcomber. Together, these images ask the question, as photographers, if we look closely, do we ever get nothing? George Mackay Brown was one…
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heid haiku
A chance exchange on twitter last week (with a poet who shares my name) got me thinking about possible associations between hats and poetry – between heids and haiku. Couldn’t a heid be something like a haiku? Both are small things, of a certain structure. Both are created by human hands and brains, and both…
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ashbery
We’ve been away and when I returned I learned that John Ashbery had died. I’ve long enjoyed his work. Aged 17, I’d decided that American poetry was my thing, and was away to University to study it. The teenage me was a little obsessed with Ashbery – initially taken in by his conversational tone, by…
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A Day in Autumn
It will not always be like this The air windless, a few last Leaves adding their decoration To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening In the lawn’s mirror. Having looked up From the day’s chores, pause a minute, Let the mind take its photograph Of the bright…
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A History of Rain
It has been one of those really difficult weeks. A good friend of Tom’s has just died (an expected death, but very sad circumstances); I have been laid low with labyrinthitis (truly terrifying) and even poor Bruce is suffering (he’s been in the cone for four weeks now due to a horrible infection on his…
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Inversnaid
We have been out walking along the West Highland Way near Inversnaid today, and I was put in mind of this landscape’s many famous visitors. Because of its fine views and beautiful surroundings, this was a spot much beloved of the Victorians, and particularly of literary travellers to Scotland. William Wordsworth wrote “to a Highland…
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Flitting
In Scots, “to flit” means to move house. Scots is full of great words that were once common in many English dialects, and thinking about flitting – the process and the word – brought to mind John Clare’s great poem of the same name today. This is a poem that perfectly captures the strangeness of…
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Ode to my Socks
A comment from CinOz in response to the previous post pointed me towards this wonderful Pablo Neruda poem, which I thought you’d enjoy reading. Ode to my Socks Mara Mori brought mea pair of sockswhich she knitted herselfwith her sheepherder’s hands,two socks as soft as rabbits.I slipped my feet into themas if they were two…
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winter afternoons
There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference – Where the Meanings, are – None may teach it – Any – ‘Tis the seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us…
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Herbsttag
Herbsttag Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß. Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren, und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los. Befiel den letzten Früchten voll zu sein; gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage, dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein. Wer jetzt kein Haus…
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braid claith
Since I wrote that piece about the Yorkshire woollen trade for The Knitter a while ago, I’ve had broadcloth on my mind. Broadcloth is a traditionally woollen, and and quintessentially British fabric. As the woven wool trade developed through the Sixteenth- and Seventeenth Centuries, broadcloth, in its several grades, kinds, and colours was popularly produced…