Edited by Nicholas Roy Butcher, Wednesday 7 April 2021 at 21:31
Dear Blog,
With World Poetry Day looming, and we are now studying poetry in earnest on the Arts and Languages Access module, my thoughts have re-immersed themselves into my own poetic journey.
I have loved and appreciated poetry all my life. It can be fun-loving, (Edward Lear - The Owl and the Pussycat), deeply moving (John Keats - When I Have Fears), nature loving (Edward Thomas - The Brook) poignantly anti-war (Wilfred Owen - Dulce et Decorum Est) and even politically rousing (Percy Shelley - The Mask of Anarchy).
And let's not forget Rudyard Kipling's inspiring - 'If', and the anonymously penned 'Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep'.
All of these poems, and many more, have embedded themselves in my soul.
Which is why I have felt inspired, no... that's the wrong word... I have felt compelled for most of my life to 'stand on the shoulders of these giants' and put my own pen to paper.
In spite of the encouragement of friends, family and peers, I have usually been scathing, or at best gruffly accepting of my own efforts. But I suppose in the fulness of time, it is not really my place to judge my own work. Many poets' work has only been discovered and become appreciated post mortem, sad though that is.
John Keats for example, died of 'Consumption' (we now know this disease as Tuberculosis) when he was just 25 years old. What a tragic waste for anyone to die so young, but that makes his legacy to us all the more remarkable, not just for its quantity, but for its quality. Which leaves us wondering what more could he have achieved had he lived to a normal age?
I can only look on in awe at the achievements of all these masters of wordsmithery, and wish that I had but half the talent that they possessed. Nevertheless, I shall continue to work hard at trying to write something that is worthy of them.
There are lots of things that our ancestors here in Britain have done that have been, shall we say, less than honourable, but I truly believe that we can be immensely proud of our poetic, and literary, heritage.
So, Blog, just like Sisyphus I will labour and strive, and who knows, maybe one day I will achieve something of note...
If Only He Could Write A Sonnet...
Dear Blog,
With World Poetry Day looming, and we are now studying poetry in earnest on the Arts and Languages Access module, my thoughts have re-immersed themselves into my own poetic journey.
I have loved and appreciated poetry all my life. It can be fun-loving, (Edward Lear - The Owl and the Pussycat), deeply moving (John Keats - When I Have Fears), nature loving (Edward Thomas - The Brook) poignantly anti-war (Wilfred Owen - Dulce et Decorum Est) and even politically rousing (Percy Shelley - The Mask of Anarchy).
And let's not forget Rudyard Kipling's inspiring - 'If', and the anonymously penned 'Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep'.
All of these poems, and many more, have embedded themselves in my soul.
Which is why I have felt inspired, no... that's the wrong word... I have felt compelled for most of my life to 'stand on the shoulders of these giants' and put my own pen to paper.
In spite of the encouragement of friends, family and peers, I have usually been scathing, or at best gruffly accepting of my own efforts. But I suppose in the fulness of time, it is not really my place to judge my own work. Many poets' work has only been discovered and become appreciated post mortem, sad though that is.
John Keats for example, died of 'Consumption' (we now know this disease as Tuberculosis) when he was just 25 years old. What a tragic waste for anyone to die so young, but that makes his legacy to us all the more remarkable, not just for its quantity, but for its quality. Which leaves us wondering what more could he have achieved had he lived to a normal age?
I can only look on in awe at the achievements of all these masters of wordsmithery, and wish that I had but half the talent that they possessed. Nevertheless, I shall continue to work hard at trying to write something that is worthy of them.
There are lots of things that our ancestors here in Britain have done that have been, shall we say, less than honourable, but I truly believe that we can be immensely proud of our poetic, and literary, heritage.
So, Blog, just like Sisyphus I will labour and strive, and who knows, maybe one day I will achieve something of note...