All this week The Daily Poem from The Paris Review has featured work by Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, and Ricardo Reis. In other words, it is featuring the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa (1888 – 1935). See the sidebar below for the explanation from the Review. On Tuesday, there were three sonnets by Álvaro de Campos. Here’s one of them:…
You know how it is when a line of a song or chunk of a poem gets stuck in you head. It’s there when you wake up and still buzzing at you days later. This post is an exorcism of sorts although this particular harmless novelty song is not an evil spirit – just an amusing annoyance whose time is…
This is the door to the ladies close to the art gallery (visit recommended) within Norwich Castle – an oasis of functional design that we had all to ourselves. There was a nice sliding lock on the stall and a proper chain to pull to empty the overhead tank with a satisfying clank. This of course sent me off on…
In a recent post, I wrote about the old railway workers known as wheeltappers – those men with long-handled hammers who walked beside trains, listening for flaws. That search led me on a delightful detour into the world of vintage railway films. These tappers show up again and again. Night Mail (1936) tells the story of the mail train and…
The Hammer Test: What Happens When a Poem Rings Hollow? “I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places.” That’s a saying often attributed to John Ashbery. He never actually said it except when quoting the poet Robert Duncan, who offered the words in praise of Ashbery’s poem Spring Day: “I have…
Molly (Mary W.) Allen 1930-2025 Featured image: https://www.farmersalmanac.com/forget-me-not-blue-flowers
Poets: Nosey, Needy, and Daft I can’t speak for other nationalities, but as far as the English go, I hold with George Orwell, who said: “The most hateful of all names in an English ear is Nosey Parker.” And that brings me to poets. Who do they think they are, sticking their beaks where they’re not wanted? What is it…
I read a great poem just before bed last night: The Ingredient by Martin Stannard. I found it here and it’s one of what Anthony Wilson calls Lifesaving Poems – essential poems for hard times. I love the whimsical and ironic tone, playful ambiguity, and the idiosyncratic significance of the ordinary “Teacups have it.I don’t know why teacups have it,but…
“In Capri, housetops are the world” – John Singer Sargent. Sargent visited the island of Capri in the summer of 1878 staying in the village of Anacapri which was popular with artists at the time. He met and became friends with the English painter Frank Hyde who persuaded him to lodge at the Pagano Hotel. It was near the town…
Crunchy is no longer enough. Dinner must now detonate. I get the New York Times Cooking newsletter in my inbox. I usually take a look – sometimes skimming, sometimes reading. It’s fun, often entertaining, and a good source of ideas for what to cook next or put on the shopping list. Now and then, Chaucer comes to mind – specifically…
Before the fragmented world of Instagram poets and TikTok book clubs, there was New World Writing: fifty cents, one paperback, and a whole literary world right on the magazine shelf at the drugstore and at the corner newsstand. Paperbacks, a Party, and Poets: The Story of New World Writing One evening in December 1951, a crowd gathered in an apartment…
One of the pleasures of events like the #1952Club is the chance to stumble across something unexpected and delightful – and A Perch in Paradise by Margaret Bullard is exactly that. Why this deliciously wicked novel has not been reissued by one of those publishing houses that specialize in forgotten gems by women is a mystery. Someone needs to get…
This week marks the start of the #1952Club, a reading event co-hosted by Simon Thomas (Stuck in a Book) and Karen Langley (Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings). The idea is simple: Pick any book published in 1952, read it, and share your thoughts – on your blog, on social media, or just in the comments. No pressure, just the pleasure of discovering…
As might be guessed from Seamus Feamus, I’ve been reading – and thoroughly enjoying – The Pilgrimage of Peregrine Prykke. (How did I get to this age without having read it before?) This is Clive James’s parody of 1970s literary London and it got me thinking about the enduring and peculiar proclivity of poetical types to self-pollinate and propagate peculiar…
In what would have been the week of Seamus Heaney ‘s 86th birthday – here is Clive James ventriloquist. Performed at the ICA in London in 1974: These were the Belfast poets — all called Seamus — Of whom the leading light was SEAMUS FEAMUS, Who even now attacked his midday meal: Two slabs of peat around a conger eel. ‘White spoors of cockle,’…