Dominic Leonard

Somebody embroidered the doily. Somebody waters the plant, or oils it, maybe. Somebody arranges the rows of cans so that they softly say: ESSO—SO—SO—SO to high-strung automobiles. Somebody loves us all.

Towering, antlerless, high as a church, homely as a house (or, safe as houses). A man’s voice assures us “Perfectly harmless. . . .”

happy birthday Elizabeth Bishop 🎈

Pinks #13: Boons, Boons Was "Balloons" Sylvia Plath's last poem?

On 5th February 1963, Sylvia Plath wrote her last two poems. I wrote about how one of them, "Balloons", is a neglected statement of what she wanted to do in poetry, which has room for both Winnie the Pooh and W.B. Yeats someflowerssoon.substack.com/p/pinks-13-b...

Then he spurred Gringolet, and took up the trail. Trees overhung him, the steep slope close to his shoulder. He pushed on down through the rough, to the gorge-bottom. Wherever he turned his eyes, it looked wilder. Nothing anywhere near that could be a shelter. Only cliffy brinks, beetling above him, Knuckled and broken outcrops, with horned crags. Clouds dragging low, torn by the scouts. There he reigned in his horse and puzzled awhile. Turning his doubts over, he searched for the Chapel. Still he could see nothing. He thought it strange. Only a little mound, a tump, in a clearing, Between the slope and the edge of the river, a knoll, Over the river’s edge, at a crossing place, The burn bubbling under as if it boiled.

When Ted Hughes died in 1999, he left an unfinished translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the great medieval poem about New Year. Here is Hughes relishing the eerie passage where Gawain seeks out the wild Green Chapel of the Green Knight on New Year's Day ('Scouts': high overhanging rocks)

Wallace Stevens

Welcome

ok images pilfered from Tom Cook at the other place. THE BEST DONNE POEM...

and i will link to this blogpost in lieu of doing alt-text - simply bc it's not going to fit in these two images, apologies aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2009/05/noct...

As England's Green continues to rightly sweep up every award going, a reminder that you can read my TLS review from some time ago here:

www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/eng...

Abbas I wish you were the shirt On my body, or I your shirt. Or I wish we were in a glass You as wine, I as rainwater. Or I wish we were two love birds Who lived alone in the desert, No people.

poem by abbas ibn al-ahnaf, translated by abdullah al-udhari and g.b.h. wightman (published in the anthology birds through a ceiling of alabaster)

The Revelation I thought that if I were broken enough I would see the light like at the end of a small tube, but approachable. I thought chickens laid eggs for a purpose. For the reason expected, a form occurred more blatant and impossible to stop me.

Wanting You Specific light, water, ground it’s on—heart’s the hard thing to define.

two poems by Robert Creeley

i ‘One cannot lose what one has not possessed’. So much for that abrasive gem. I can lose what I want. I want you.

Geoffrey Hill

A Sunday well spent. Morning reading Anne Carson, afternoon writing a poem about the neverending cosmic horror of life on earth, now time for a wine tasting

Anne Carson

New poem in And Other Poems

Bhanu Kapil : Incubation : A Space for Monsters - Tin House Bhanu Kapil’s postcolonial feminist road novel Incubation : A Space for Monsters has long been out-of-print. The book of hers that most engages with the mythos and reality of America, Incubation fo...

I can't express how excited I am to share today's conversation with one of my favorite living writers, the extraordinary Bhanu Kapil. With the reissue of the long unavailable Incubation: A Space for Monsters we look across her writing life entire Audio: tinhouse.com/podcast/bhan...

Loved visiting Eton today and seeing, amongst other things, one of the 5 existing originals of Keats's death mask, some of Shelley's graffiti, and the oldest classroom in continuous use in Europe (potentially the world)

What about melt waffle

Funnily enough I just nearly broke my ankle at the Temple of Asklepios

Haven't even left the tarmac and I'm getting shade from a Greek chap on the plane about the Marbles

Many paragraphs Donna Tartt writes have opening sentences so good they could be the start of a short story:

"Though Mrs. Fountain had not poisoned the cat, she was nonetheless pleased that it was dead."

DOM LEONARD THE POET?

An excellent ghazal by Jericho Brown, which also sounds - from the rhythm, not just the refrain - like it's got Barrett Browning's Musical Instrument playing in the background

Making mayonnaise from scratch is self care

"I should have gone through life half awake if you'd had the decency to leave me alone." GOD

Watching the only good film ever made

Getting on Blue Sky so I can tell the world I really like King Lear

Shakespeare is never great at endings, but my god every word of this is magnificent

Evaristo Prize for African Poetry open for submissions!

brittlepaper.com/2023/10/subm...

Evangelists over the road playing Christian rock so loudly that I can't focus on reading Saint Augustine. Is this what you want

I like it when it explodes in my teeth

RIP Louise Glück, what a sad surprise