Uncategorized

Billericay Dickie is a song performed by Ian Dury (1942-20000 and the Blockheads. I heard it first while in New Zealand in 1978 and found it odd that New Zealanders should be playing me music from my home and sung in my accent when I knew nothing about it. The song is almost unacceptable by…

 I struggled with the poetry of Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) until I listened to a series of radio programmes on his poetry. https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2024/02/25/getting-closer-and-closer-to-the-magic-of-the-poetry-of-seamus-heaney/  His poems have most impact when read by him. “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland presented a poetic problem to Heaney, a Catholic but also the country’s leading poet, even voice. Could he come…

“Benedictus: A Book of Blessings” by John O’Donohue (1956–2008) has reached me in various ways, and I’ve read most of the book. A friend, an actor, reads one of his poems on YouTube in a voice that’s almost a whisper. Another friend points me towards his poems, granting me a gift. Wikipedia describes Donohue as…

“Ulysses” by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) is a favourite poem, one I return to again and again. It’s a very Victorian poem, ending with “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,” the spirit that sent the Victorians—missionaries, soldiers, carpetbaggers, and explorers—ranging, conquering, colonising, discovering, and exploiting the world. But the same phrase…

I’ve selected this poem primarily because of an anthology, “The Fire of Joy” by Clive James (1939-2019). James was a wit, broadcaster, columnist, critic, and poet. As with so many people with multiple talents, it was being a poet that he valued the most. His anthology gave me huge pleasure. I found many familiar poems…

So far I’ve avoided having two poems by one poet, tempted as I have been. But now I’m not only going to have two poems by one poet I’m going to have it on the next day. My friend Linda, who lives in California, sent me this poem in response to me sending her “The…

Wendell Berry (1934–) is, Wikipedia tells me, “an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer.” I feel that I sort of know his name, but the poem below I found in my collection. I can’t remember where I found it. It’s the simplest of poems, almost prose, but expresses well the peace…

Stevie Smith (actually Florence Margaret Smith, 1902 –1971) was a poet unlike any other—like William Blake and Emily Dickinson. Of course all poets are different, and have to be, but some are more different than others. Smith was deserted by her father, spent three years in a sanatorium as a child, lost her mother to…

“Metamorphoses” is the most famous work of Ovid (43 BCE-17 or 18), one of the greatest of Roman poets, and has huge cultural importance, inspiring poets, painters, and other artists. A translation into English by Arthur Golding in 1567 was an inspiration and source for Shakespeare. I have a copy of Golding’s translation, but it’s much…

Li Bai (702-761) is one of the greatest Chinese poets of the Tang Dynasty. His poems, Wikipedia tells me, celebrate “the pleasures of friendship, the depth of nature, solitude, and the joys of drinking.” I can’t pretend to know about Li Bai or to have read any other of his poems, but somehow (and I can’t remember…