Tag: English poetry
Melesina Bowen’s ‘Ystradffin’

In recent years many Welsh women poets of the past have been rescued from the condescension of posterity, not least in the anthology edited by Katie Gramich and Catherine Brennan. But one of them has so far escaped much attention. In 1839 Melesina Bowen published an unusual topographical poem in English called Ystradffin. It deserves […]
John Clare and the snipe

Slow radio at its best achieves what no amount of ‘fast radio’, with its assumption of the attention span of a hoverfly, can achieve: thought connections that stay in the mind long after the programme has ended. Paul Farley’s recent day (half an hour on the radio: The Poet and the Snipe) looking, in vain, […]
Edward Thomas in Gower

At last some warmth returned with the sun, and I took the rough path along the top of the cliff between Rotherslade and Limeslade. The sea was calm, empty and quiet, except for one thing: the bell of a floating buoy, its clear sound carried over the water by a light onshore breeze. I’ve been […]
Closely observed hot chocolate

From my early childhood, an evening mug of hot chocolate has been a small but constant source of comfort. I suspect it’s a common addiction. Chocolate drinking is not a failing that many grown-up people own up to, and certainly not one that many would think of writing about. A notable exception is the poet […]
Tennyson in Llanberis

Alfred Tennyson was born in Lincolnshire, and lived there throughout the first part of his life. The portrait of him that always comes to mind is the photo Julia Margaret Cameron took of him in 1865, which shows him as prematurely aged, with thinning, straggly hair, untidy beard and lined face (Tennyson said it made […]
After Offa: Mercian Hymns

We weren’t just following his Dyke on foot. We were also tracking its maker, Offa, king of the Mercians. Or so it was said. We’ve no contemporary evidence that Offa was the one responsible. The first person to make the claim was Asser, a Welsh monk from St Davids (his original name may have been […]