In today's poetry feature, Stephen selects three variations on Horace's famous advice about how to live... Perhaps the best-known piece of advice on How to Live was given by Horace: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. In The Oxford Dictionary of Latin Words and Phrases (1998) the phrase is translated as ... Read More...
Dabbler Verse
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his own requiem - and it echoed in the work of later poets... Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from ill-health for much of his short life. Nevertheless, he usually remained in good spirits. But he knew what he was up against. Thus, it is not surprising that, on ... Read More...
Happy New Year from all at The Dabbler! For our first post of 2014, Stephen offers poems for the new year and the old... As the New Year arrives we should spare a thought for the Old Year. Yes, T. S. Eliot has suggested that "Time present and time past/Are both perhaps present ... Read More...
Stephen brings you some poetry for Christmas Eve... Christina Rossetti's best-known poem is usually sung or listened to, not read. I suspect that many of those who sing or listen to the verses are not aware that they were written by Rossetti. Here is the first stanza of the poem: In the ... Read More...
In this weekend's poetry feature Nige considers the use of enjambment... What is wrong with this poem? Why no! I never thought other than That God is that great absence In our lives, the empty silence Within, the place where we go Seeking, not in hope to Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices In our knowledge, the ... Read More...
Kingsley Amis rated A.E. Housman as one of the greatest English poets. Stephen reveals why... The two great themes of A. E. Housman's poetry are love (unrequited, or requited and lost) and death (or, put differently, the fleeting nature of life). These subjects are addressed in verse that some may find ... Read More...
There was much more to Thomas Hardy than pessimism, as Edward Thomas observed... Edward Thomas knew English poetry backwards and forwards. Not surprisingly, therefore, his comments on particular poets are very perceptive. When it comes to the poetry of Thomas Hardy, Thomas (as is the case with anyone who reads the ... Read More...
This week Stephen celebrates an unfairly overlooked poet... Many of my favorite poems have been written by poets who I consider to be "neglected." There are various reasons for this neglect. Perhaps it has to do with literary "reputations" and (Heaven forbid) literary "criticism." (I am not an unremitting foe of ... Read More...
Following his post on October leaves, this week Stephen approaches autumn from a more oblique angle... Autumn is not autumn without a visit to Wallace Stevens. I do not know exactly what the following poem "means." Perhaps it has something to do with autumn being both an end and a beginning, ... Read More...
This week Stephen brings you some poetry for autumn... Because October is my favourite month and because this is my favourite season, today I pursue an autumnal theme. Here is a poem by Elizabeth Jennings from one of her early collections. (Collections which are well worth returning to.) Song at the Beginning ... Read More...
