This is week two of our cat themed poems and we have two to offer today: One is by the Italian poet Cesare Pavese,who was born in 1908.As well as his own writing he is responsible for many translations of great 19th and 20th century english language writers like Herman Melville and Charles Dickens.Today an atmospheric poem : The cats will know ( Read more... )

We are on holiday for a few weeks at the Saturday poem but just to say that we have lots of good things in store for the Autumn ( horrible to be mentioning that word so soon but there it is !) including our first guest column from Canada and some returning guest columnists ( Read more... )

Todays poem is in both categories I think - it is a love poem and hopefully it will raise a smile in some readers ( Read more... )

This week we share a suggestion made by kittycallum in her comment on last weeks post by Whitman.
It is in the laughter category of our summer theme and is a song by Charles Dibdin, who wrote many songs about naval life and it is delightful - just have a smile)

under the cut for The Sailors Consolation

( The Sailors Consolation )

A few readers have promised to search out favourite 'love and laughter' theme poems for future weeks which is great :) This week we feature a poem which is not particularly in the laughter category but which is very certainly life affirming. It is a short poem by Walt Whitman, a poet who has featured several times in this column so far. This is ( Read more... )

The poem originally intended for today has had to be put on ice as I discovered my copy is not with me and I can't find the text on the net.
So instead a well known poem but one of those ones we may not have read in a long time and only have vague memories of - and for a change a sonnet !

( Composed upon Westminster Bridge )

This weekend's poem is by David Constantine and is from the volume called ( Read more... )

This week's poem is by George MacDonald, born in Aberdeenshire, a Scottish poet, writer and theologian of the 19th century. I know very little about him but there is an excellent website with all kinds of information called The Golden Key at www.george-macdonald.com ( Read more... )

Well I promised Blake this week so Blake it is -but then I remembered that today is card shop and florists benefit day aka Valentines Day when people even in the Times address each other in the daftest idioglossia they would never otherwise admit to and when the earnestly romantic but sadly unimaginative (including,apparently,the gifted Mr ( Read more... )

We are a day late with the Saturday poem owing to domestic complexities(now thankfully dealt with) so apologies ( Read more... )