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Poem
He can make sculptures and fabulous machines, invent games, tell jokes, give solemn, adult advice – but he is slow to read. When I take him on my knee with his Ladybird book he gazes into the air, sighing…
Poet
Joanna Baillie
B. 1762 D. 1851
Baillie was a Scottish playwright, critic and poet who lived most of her life in Hampstead, where she was the centre of a rich literary culture. Born into a family of physicians and the daughter of a university professor, Baillie…
Poem
City River Blues - Benjamin Zephaniah
Went to the river Seeking inspiration, Saw dead fish floating Dead men boating And condoms galore. Sat by the river Wondering, From where cometh Dat bloody smell, For if I waz wize And I could tell The world would…
Poet
John Masefield
B. 1878 D. 1967
Masefield was born in Ledbury in Herefordshire. Both his parents died when he was young. He was educated at Warwick School and became a Merchant Seaman, joining HMS Conway. He deserted the navy in 1895 and spent time in the…
Poet
Eleanor Farjeon
B. 1881 D. 1965
Farjeon was born in London in 1881 into a family inured in art and literature. Her father, Benjamin Leopold was a novelist and her mother, Margaret Jane was the daughter of the American Actor, Joseph Jefferson. Farjeon is recorded as…
Poet
Edwin Muir
B. 1887 D. 1959
Edwin Muir was one of the chief Scottish poets of his day writing in English, as well as being known as a literary critic and translator. Born the son of a crofter, Muir was educated in Kirkwall. Following his marriage…
Poet
Alfred Austin
B. 1835 D. 1913
Appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, Austin was born in Headingley and was educated at Stonyhurst College, St Mary’s College and at the University of London. His upbringing was Roman Catholic but moved towards agnosticism over time. He trained as a…
Poem
Excerpts from ‘Humanimal: A Project for Future Children” - Bhanu Kapil
Excerpt 1: I want to make a dark mirror out of writing: one child facing the other, like Dora and little Hans. I want to write, for example, about the violence done to my father’s body as a child. In…
Poem
by Michelle Robin Visser
Not even Hildegard knew that the manuscripts she wrote were written hand to skin or the hard number of sheep it took to copy a Bible. When monks, drunk on their own liqueurs, swore there were ghosts pushing books off…
Poem
Every night that summer when we went to bed on the flat roof, I stayed awake watching the opposite roof where he was, a tiny light turning on every time he puffed his cigarette. Once I was shown his paintings…
Poem
To My Father / To My Future Son - Ocean Vuong
The stars are not hereditary Emily Dickinson There was a…
Poem
Nightwatch after nightwatch Paul Klee endured ‘horribly boring guard duty’ at the gasoline cellar and every morning outside the Zeppelin hangar there was drill then a speech tacked with junk formulas he varnished wings and stencilled numbers next to…
Poem
I wonder how you are going to feel when you find out that I wrote this instead of you, that it was I who got up early to sit in the kitchen and mention with a pen the rain-soaked…
Poem
The Nineteenth Century as a Song - Robert Hass
“How like a well-kept garden is your soul.” John Gray’s translation of Verlaine & Baudelaire’s butcher in 1861 shorted him four centimes on a pound of tripe. He thought himself a clever man and, wiping the calves’ blood from…
Poem
The spring has darkened with activity. The future gathers in vine, bush, and tree: Persimmon, walnut, loquat, fig, and grape, Degrees and kinds of color, taste, and shape. These will advance in their due series, space The season like…
Poem
Elegy for a Soldier - Marilyn Hacker
I. The city where I knew you was swift. A lover cabbed to Brooklyn (broke, but so what) after the night shift in a Second Avenue diner. The lover was a Quaker, a poet, an anti-war activist. Was blonde,…
Poem
Flat feet kept Einstein out of the army. The Emperor’s horse considers its position. In Akasaka men sit down and weep Because the night must end. At Chez Oz I discussed my old friend’s sex change With a lovely…
Poem
The Day My Father Died - Mervyn Morris
The day my father died I could not cry; My mother cried, Not I. His face on the pillow In the dim light Wrote mourning to me, Black and white. We saw him struggle, Stiffen, relax; The face fell…