poems
-
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…
-
I had never heard of Hayden Carruth (1921-2008) until I read this poem this morning. Indeed, I wrongly assumed that Hayden was a woman. I now know that he was a prolific and successful American poet influenced by jazz and blues, a tenured professor, and poetry editor of Harper’s (a favourite magazine of mine) who lived for…
-
At school between 1963 and 1970 I heard a reading from the Bible five days a week in school assembly. Now I rarely hear readings from the Bible, only at weddings and funerals, but I hear phrases from the Bible every day in ordinary speech. There are many Bibles, each of them a political as…
-
Once a week I cycle down a road in Stockwell past a house with a blue plaque for Edward Thomas (1878-1917). He’s sometimes known as a war poet—because he was killed at the Battle of Arras—but few of his poems are about war. His best known poem is Adlestrop, a poem about the stillness of…
-
At the moment our daughter is 36 weeks pregnant, and I inevitably thought of her when this morning I read this poem by Silvia Plath (1932-1962) describing the fetus in her womb. I find it an arresting poem with wonderful images: “Wrapped up in yourself like a spool”; “Snug as a bud and at home”;…
A Cairn of Poems 