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John Lennon was shot dead aged 40 on 8 December 1980 outside the Dakota building in New York City. Although I was 28 at that time, I always feel that it’s the day that I grew old. His death was a huge shock, much more so for me than the death of John Kennedy. People…
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A good way to find new poems is to follow up a quotation. I came across “One night they kissed my soul out in a burning mist” in Aldous Huxley’s After Many a Summer (the title itself a quote from Tennyson), and thanks to the magic of Google I quickly found that the quote came…
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I sang Dear Lord and Father of Mankind many times at school 60 years ago, but I’m not sure that I’ve sung it since then. I loved both the words and the tune without thinking much about what the words meant. I’m not sure why the phrase “Till all our strivings cease” popped into my…
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Paul Durcan, who died in May this year, has been a favourite poet of mine ever since I heard him read his poems after a dinner at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (a ridiculous institution in a country that had spent almost a millennium trying to rid itself of the British crown). https://acairnofpoems.com/2025/03/01/teresas-bar-by-paul-durcan/…
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I find Shakespeare’s sonnets wonderful but tricky. I read them again and again, often out loud, but almost always the full meaning eludes me. Yet there is enough meaning and enough sparkling lines to enchant me William Shakespeare (1564 –1616) wrote 154 sonnets plus a few more in his plays. All sonnets have 14 lines…
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Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is in his novels more a poet and a dramatist than a novelist, a writer friend tells me. As I read Dombey and Son, I reflect on what my friend says and come to see what he means.https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2025/12/13/a-life-enhancing-novel-in-which-pride-comes-before-resounding-crashes/ There are many passages in the book where Dickens writes passage that can be…
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I came across the first four lines of this poem and hymn this morning while reading Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens (1812-1870). I was sufficiently taken by the simple words and admirable sentiment to look for the poem. I discovered that it was written by Isaac Watts (1664-1748) an English minister, hymn writer, theologian,…
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Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), the great Chilean poet, wrote this poem in 1936 as the Spanish Civil War began and Madrid moved from peace to war, from “the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,/wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea” to “the blood of children ran through the streets/without fuss.” Something similar happened in Chile…
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A friend who died a year ago pointed me towards the poetry of Mary Oliver (1935-2019), America’s best-selling poet in 2007. My friend had chosen Oliver poems to be read at her funeral. She recommended me to buy Oliver’s collected poems, but I was put off by the price of the book. But my friend…
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A death is one of the events that prompts those for whom poetry is only an occasional habit to reach for a poem. This may be especially the case if the person has to speak at a funeral. Here’s a poem by James Fenton (1949–) that s good for a funeral and tries to answer…
A Cairn of Poems 