Three weeks ago, the very lovely poet and bookseller Jen Campbell blogged about a fantastic event in London called Raining Poems. She offered to send out some poems from the event and I was thrilled to be one of the lucky winners. My poem arrived today…
Ariel
by Sylvia Plath
This was Plath’s final volume of poetry, published two years after her death, and I could not separate the knowledge of what shortly followed these writings from the words themselves. It was not an easy read…
One thing I envy my parents’ and grandparents’ generations is that they were taught, in fact required, to memorise poetry. For me, in the 1980s and 90s, we barely touched poetry at school…
Possession
by AS Byatt
This was a re-read that I sadly ended up rushing through because it was for book club and I didn’t give myself enough time. It’s a wonderful book, as literary as they come yet immensely readable…
Feminine Gospels
by Carol Ann Duffy
A lot of the poems in this collection by our esteemed Poet Laureate read like little short stories, which made them pleasingly accessible for someone like me who doesn’t read a whole lot of poetry…
Thought I’d share my favourite poem with you, as the lovely weather has put me in a poetic sort of mood…
Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments
by Sappho
translated by Aaron Poochigian
Sappho lived from 630 until 570 BCE on the island of Lesbos and has been renowned throughout the intervening centuries as one of the greatest poets who ever lived. Sadly, little of her material has survived and what we do have is largely in fragments…