Spring is coming - time to keep your eyes on the ground, suggests Stephen in this week's Dabbler Verse feature... There is something to be said for winnowing, for paring down.  The culture around us encourages short attention spans and hyperactive grasping after chimeras. Don't get me wrong:  I am in ... Read More...

Wouldn't the world be a much better place if people stopped trying to improve it and just stayed put in their room?... Pascal's best-known observation on the human condition is perhaps this: "I have often said, that all the Misfortune of Men proceeds from their not knowing how to keep themselves ... Read More...

In today's poetry feature, Stephen finds peace at the journey's end... I first encountered the word "bourne" in the title of a poem by Christina Rossetti.  I had no idea what it meant, but I immediately felt that it was a lovely word.  There was something about the look and the ... Read More...

What is the essence of true poetry? Edward Thomas provided one answer... Edward Thomas wrote all of his poems between December of 1914 and January of 1917.  Some have suggested that this creative period was a sort of "miracle," given that Thomas had not previously written poetry.  I disagree.  If there was any "miracle," it ... Read More...

Nige unearths a neglected gem of Victorian poety by the almost-forgotten Jean Ingelow... Unless a man is an extraordinary coxcomb, a person of private means, or both, he seldom has the time and opportunity of committing, or the wish to commit, bad or indifferent verse for a long series of years; ... Read More...

Despite his reputation as the World's Grumpiest Poet, R.S. Thomas wrote a number of lovely, short Christmas poems. Our resident Dabbler Verse expert Stephen Pentz offers a compendium... The word that comes to mind when I think of R. S. Thomas is fierce. However, having said that, I feel that I ... Read More...

In today's poetry feature Stephen considers the importance of being idle... I think of idleness as a good thing.  I do not associate idleness with lassitude, laziness, or sloth.  Rather, I associate it with repose, reverie, and contemplation. People who carry on cellphone conversations in public are in dire need of idleness. ... Read More...

In today's Dabbler Verse feature, Stephen considers self-awareness, and introduces a poem by C. Day Lewis... Is it possible to look at yourself objectively?  To see yourself for who you are?  Speaking for myself, I have my doubts.  Still, I like to think that I am more optimistic about the possibility ... Read More...

  Nige reflects on a poem about a painting... I only recently came across the word Ekphrasis (adj. ekphrastic), but I've been enjoying Ekphrasis, all unknowing, for many years. It describes a work of art (or part of one) whose subject is another work of art - from Homer on the shield ... Read More...

To mark 11 November, a post from the archives in which some of the Dabblers select a favourite verse appropriate to the occasion... Brit - Seigfried Sassoon: Everyone Sang (1920) This gradually became my favourite of Sassoon's poems, then my favourite war poem, and is now just one of my favourite poems. ... Read More...