Dearest eglantine_br I'm so sorry I'm late with this birthday greeting. I seem to permanently late these days. I should take a leaf out of Lord Chatham's book and call myself The Late Lady Anteros :}

Anyway here's a poem I've been saving for you. It's called Discontinuity, it's by the Shetland poet Christine De Luca and written in her native Shetlandic ( Read more... )

I got back from a lovely break in the Western Isles last weekend and promptly came down with the cold from hell. It's ages since I've had a bad cold and I'd forgotten just how much they can flatten you. I had hoped to post some pics and other bits and pieces but my head is full of cotton wool, so in the meantime here's one picture of a nice view ( Read more... )

I'm sure you are all the very epitome of sobriety and propriety, but just in case any of you did overindulge over the festive season, you might want to consider this stern warning published by the National Temperance League in 1890. This painfully worthy example of high Victorian doggerel was posted on the British Library's wonderful Untold Lives ( Read more... )

...for St David's Day.

Two Welsh blokes reciting Welsh poetry to each other in Welsh on a beach...in Santa Monica. I have no idea either. This is a very odd video, from the long defunct IoanOnline site, but it never fails to make me smile. The poetry is lovely and the boys aren't bad either ;)

Click to view

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Apparently it's National Poetry Day here in the UK. (Is it me, or do these things come around rather frequently?!) Anyway, never mind, it gives me a good excuse to post this rather bitter sweet poem by Canadian poet Charles G. D. Roberts.

Grey rocks and greyer seaGrey rocks, and greyer sea ( Read more... )

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One of the papers we heard at the Port Towns conference was about the experiences of sailor's wives in the Åland Islands and the presenter finished with this lovely piece. She referred to it as an American poem called "The Sailors Wife", but it seems that it's better known as "The Nantucket Girls Song". I suspect some of you will be very familiar ( Read more... )

A poem for your birthday from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, one of my favourite books from when I was very small :)


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Northern Trail~ Kenneth White ( Read more... )