Paul Hoover / House of Cedar, Rafters of Fir
Hoover is not a poet I’m familiar with but another that I discovered on the excellent Poetry Foundation app. He is riffing on the imagery...
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Alistair Appleton
- Aug 15
- 2 min
From "Out on the lawn, I lie in bed" / WH Auden
A very Audenesque Auden poem from 1933 that undercuts the dreamy, chummy pastoral of the first few stanzas with an unsettling meditation...
155 views2 comments
Alistair Appleton
- Aug 2
- 1 min
From “Tintern Abbey” / William Wordsworth
I loved Wordsworth when I studied him as a Romantic teenager at school. And then was rather abashed in the very postmodern University...
182 views3 comments
Alistair Appleton
- Jul 19
- 1 min
The Cold Heaven / WB Yeats
On a very hot week in the UK, here is a deliciously cold poem. One of my favourites from Yeats, it is filled with dazzling phrases -...
249 views8 comments
Alistair Appleton
- Jul 12
- 1 min
Adlestrop / Edward Thomas
Kirsty and I were travelling back from Holy Isle, crossing Scotland from Glasgow to Edinburgh on the train. We were talking poems. And we...
185 views2 comments
Alistair Appleton
- Jul 4
- 1 min
Prayer / Carol Ann Duffy
This is a beautiful sonnet from the erstwhile UK Poet Laureate. In a 'faithless' world prayers come in all sorts of forms. I particularly...
218 views4 comments
Alistair Appleton
- Jun 27
- 1 min
Biology / Stephen O'Connor
I came across this short poem on the excellent Poetry Foundation app which randomly selects a poem for your pleasure. Stephen O'Connor is...
197 views1 comment
Alistair Appleton
- Jun 20
- 2 min
The Swan / Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver is the best-selling poet in America by a long shot. And her life, mostly in Provincetown, Massachusetts but in her last years...
237 views4 comments
Alistair Appleton
- Jun 13
- 1 min
Thunder / Elizabeth Bishop
I love Elizabeth Bishop's poetry. The Moose and The Sandpiper are both masterpieces. But I came across this uncollected sonnet of hers...
181 views8 comments
Alistair Appleton
- Jun 6
- 1 min
Weeds / Maureen N. McLane
I came across this poem in the London Review of Books (which is the source of much of my knowledge about the world, but not often poetic...
133 views0 comments
Alistair Appleton
- May 30
- 1 min
Lana Turner Has Collapsed / Frank O'Hara
I love Frank O'Hara's poetry and I wrote an IG post on his birthday a few months ago. "One of the most delicious and intoxicating poets I...
110 views1 comment
Alistair Appleton
- May 26
- 1 min
We're building the ship as we sail it / Kay Ryan
Kay Ryan is an erstwhile America Poet Laureate and a Pulitzer Prize winner. But what is so delicious about her poem are the mordent...
172 views5 comments
Alistair Appleton
- May 23
- 2 min
Sunday Morning / Wallace Stevens
This long poem by the American modernist poet Wallace Stevens is one of my favourites. He was an interesting fellow. High-ranking...
225 views12 comments