Tag Archives: lent

Lent 14: August

This is my littlest sister’s favourite poem, by Esta Spalding. I can see why, there’s lots to it. I found this on a forum, she found it in Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times, you can also find it … Continue reading

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Lent 13: two poems featuring spiders

Naomi Foyle’s The Night Pavilion is a book of three distinct parts, though each one remains differently varied. Not afraid of the coarse or erotic, the second part (“Aphrodite’s Answering Machine”) contains, amongst other erotica, new definitions of words for … Continue reading

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Lent 12: Winter’s Tale

I have all of Duffy’s adult collections, several of her books of children’s poetry, and a lot of her edited anthologies. My first taste of her work was from her fifth collection The World’s Wife, which to this day is … Continue reading

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Lent 11: Liberation

I bought Ros Barber’s collection How Things Are On Thursday despite it having not being (to my knowledge) mentioned in the PBS Bulletin. This is most unlike me. I did however, for some reason, get a small flyer with one … Continue reading

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Lent 10. Child Burial

I almost didn’t share this poem by Paula Meehan, because it’s not really the kind of subject you “share” as such, not without warning. Don’t read if a poem about the death of a child is likely to upset you … Continue reading

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Lent 9: Moniza Alvi

I’ve been wanting to share some Moniza Alvi, but the collection I have, Europa, is a bit dark. Europa starts with an exploration of PTSD, then as Alvi reminds us that ‘trauma’ comes from the Greek (meaning pierced skin), it … Continue reading

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Lent 8: The Darkness of her Meekness

I’ve mentioned my ‘problem’ with Selima Hill before. As a poet whose work I don’t really get, she has quite clearly managed to get under my skin as I own no less than six of her collections. Somehow, when I … Continue reading

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Lent 7: Wendy Cope, and, for comic effect, Ted Hughes

I’m going to share another Wendy Cope poem, simply because I want to share her anecdote about why schools are crap at poetry. In 2008 she released a “new & selected” book called Two Cures for Love. About this book, … Continue reading

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Lent 6: The Mourner

Today I am actually sharing work from a poet whose collection I haven’t bought. Yet. Zoe Brigley studied and taught at Warwick University while some good friends of mine were there, and her new collection, Conquest, is a Poetry Book … Continue reading

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Lent 5: Hedgehog

I remember being really excited to see that the Poetry Book Society had chosen Polly Clark’s Take Me with You as their Winter choice in 2005. I’d seen Clark’s poetry in Mslexia and liked it, even if I didn’t really … Continue reading

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