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Thomas Randolph (1605-1635). Multum in parvo.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Fran's eulogy for Michael Longley is now available also as a text, here: irelandchairofpoetry.org/remembering-...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Michael Longley's funeral on 1st February is viewable here: especially good is Fran Brearton's perfect, moving eulogy. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcSJ...

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Alexander Pope

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

It’s a poem in itself.

submitted 19 days ago • 1 comment

I write about films sometimes. Please subscribe! thefilmphilosopher.substack.com?r=4sb647&utm...

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

open.substack.com/pub/thefilmp... David Lynch/William Blake

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Edward Thomas. What a strange, unsettling sound this poem makes.

submitted 21 days ago • 2 comments

In 2007, I read this Callimachus epigram and Cory’s great translation of it at the grave of Louis MacNeice. Both Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley were there with me that day (Louis’ centenary). Back from my dear friend Michael’s funeral today, I’m pronouncing those sad lines again.

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

www.the-tls.co.uk/classics/gre...

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

An #IceAge masterpiece: the oldest known representation of a bird. The small carving (4.7cm) of a water bird was made from mammoth ivory some 40,000 years ago. It's thought to be a diver, cormorant, or duck.Found in the Hohle Fels cave on the....🧵1/2 📷 @almbawue.bsky.social 🏺 #archaeology

submitted 38 days ago • 19 comments

Some fine, icy Allen Tate - a poem I’ve always admired, but also good for this coming week, I suspect.

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

Please join us on Thursday 23rd January at Heffers in Cambridge to celebrate the launch of two Carcanet collections, The Face in the Well by Rebecca Watts and One Little Room by Peter McDonald. Tickets are £5, and include a glass of wine: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rebecca-wa...

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

Deep as I am in the hard labour of collation, annotation, and commentary, I take comfort in this, from Christopher Ricks in his Allusion to the Poets (2002): “The supererogatory should not be degradingly equated with the superfluous.”

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

Scythian.

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

Brancusi x3 (Chicago)

submitted 41 days ago • 0 comments

Yeatsian pagoda doodle, instead of getting on with the poem. Note upside-down face in the corner.

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

Wimbush family snap, from when Mary W and Louis MacNeice were staying on Sark, early 1960s. He was writing his best poetry around this time. And even on holiday, never forget your cravat.

submitted 43 days ago • 1 comment

He is, of course, a fully recyclable writer.

submitted 44 days ago • 2 comments

Ringwood, an otter-hound of extraordinary Sagacity, remembered at Rousham.

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments

Hammered gold.

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments

Look out for those Triplets! The ending of Swift’s ‘Description of a City Shower’ (1710). His note from later on is priceless.

submitted 45 days ago • 1 comment

“Their verdure dare not show …” This version from WBY’s A Book of Irish Verse (1895): revisited in Louis MacNeice’s poem “Valediction” (1934).

submitted 46 days ago • 0 comments

open.substack.com/pub/thefilmp...

submitted 46 days ago • 0 comments

One poetic imagination can come to life with complete originality within another. Like this, where Yeats is movingly refigured by Louise Gluck: Man is in love, and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say? (Yeats) Why love what you will lose? There is nothing else to love. (Gluck)

submitted 47 days ago • 1 comment

“To lose | For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.” An essential poem of Richard Wilbur’s, which continues to count.

submitted 48 days ago • 0 comments

“Will, don’t look so sensible…” Max Beerbohm remembering Oscar Wilde and William Rothenstein at the Café Royal. Not the best of nights for Oscar, evidently.

submitted 49 days ago • 0 comments

The last image of Aubrey Beardsley, taken in 1897. He was to die in this room, in the Hotel Cosmopolitain, Menton. Forty-two years later, his friend WBY died just up the road, in the Hotel Idéal Séjour.

submitted 50 days ago • 1 comment

WBY’s London HQ, long before he could afford clubs, at number 18. There was a cobbler on the ground floor, and upstairs was “the toff wot lives in the Buildings”. Nice and handy for the boat train.

submitted 50 days ago • 0 comments

Some Michael Longley, for a cold night.

submitted 51 days ago • 0 comments

Thomas Randolph (1605-1635). Multum in parvo.

Fran's eulogy for Michael Longley is now available also as a text, here: irelandchairofpoetry.org/remembering-...

Michael Longley's funeral on 1st February is viewable here: especially good is Fran Brearton's perfect, moving eulogy. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcSJ...

Alexander Pope

It’s a poem in itself.

I write about films sometimes. Please subscribe! thefilmphilosopher.substack.com?r=4sb647&utm...

open.substack.com/pub/thefilmp... David Lynch/William Blake

Edward Thomas. What a strange, unsettling sound this poem makes.

In 2007, I read this Callimachus epigram and Cory’s great translation of it at the grave of Louis MacNeice. Both Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley were there with me that day (Louis’ centenary). Back from my dear friend Michael’s funeral today, I’m pronouncing those sad lines again.

www.the-tls.co.uk/classics/gre...

An #IceAge masterpiece: the oldest known representation of a bird. The small carving (4.7cm) of a water bird was made from mammoth ivory some 40,000 years ago. It's thought to be a diver, cormorant, or duck.Found in the Hohle Fels cave on the....🧵1/2 📷 @almbawue.bsky.social 🏺 #archaeology

Some fine, icy Allen Tate - a poem I’ve always admired, but also good for this coming week, I suspect.

Please join us on Thursday 23rd January at Heffers in Cambridge to celebrate the launch of two Carcanet collections, The Face in the Well by Rebecca Watts and One Little Room by Peter McDonald. Tickets are £5, and include a glass of wine: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rebecca-wa...

Deep as I am in the hard labour of collation, annotation, and commentary, I take comfort in this, from Christopher Ricks in his Allusion to the Poets (2002): “The supererogatory should not be degradingly equated with the superfluous.”

Scythian.

Brancusi x3 (Chicago)

Yeatsian pagoda doodle, instead of getting on with the poem. Note upside-down face in the corner.

Wimbush family snap, from when Mary W and Louis MacNeice were staying on Sark, early 1960s. He was writing his best poetry around this time. And even on holiday, never forget your cravat.

He is, of course, a fully recyclable writer.

Ringwood, an otter-hound of extraordinary Sagacity, remembered at Rousham.

Hammered gold.

Look out for those Triplets! The ending of Swift’s ‘Description of a City Shower’ (1710). His note from later on is priceless.

“Their verdure dare not show …” This version from WBY’s A Book of Irish Verse (1895): revisited in Louis MacNeice’s poem “Valediction” (1934).

open.substack.com/pub/thefilmp...

One poetic imagination can come to life with complete originality within another. Like this, where Yeats is movingly refigured by Louise Gluck: Man is in love, and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say? (Yeats) Why love what you will lose? There is nothing else to love. (Gluck)

“To lose | For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.” An essential poem of Richard Wilbur’s, which continues to count.

“Will, don’t look so sensible…” Max Beerbohm remembering Oscar Wilde and William Rothenstein at the Café Royal. Not the best of nights for Oscar, evidently.

The last image of Aubrey Beardsley, taken in 1897. He was to die in this room, in the Hotel Cosmopolitain, Menton. Forty-two years later, his friend WBY died just up the road, in the Hotel Idéal Séjour.

WBY’s London HQ, long before he could afford clubs, at number 18. There was a cobbler on the ground floor, and upstairs was “the toff wot lives in the Buildings”. Nice and handy for the boat train.

Some Michael Longley, for a cold night.

One of those poems that used to be well known: it still packs a punch. Thomas Hood.

New year, and resolution (as only Thomas Hardy could).

Some W.B. Yeats to see out the Old Year.

Waller.

Louis MacNeice (from ‘As In Their Time’ (1963))

Edwin Muir.

Alhambra