And so to the last of my examples for this blog about my poems from paintings, where the warm, vibrant hand of the artist confronts death. In Frans Hals’ Portrait of a Young Man with a Skull the “jaunty, tactile, flippant” feather in the young man’s cap reveals his vanity, complacency and ignorance: “With open … Continue reading “11. Death in paintings and poems”
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1. How I came to write my poems from poems
I just happened to hear a snatch of a Radio 4 programme where Gyles Brandreth was explaining how learning poems by heart was a good work-out for the brain. I thought, “Yes, I could do that,” and began by memorising a Shakespeare sonnet. But then I thought that writing a sonnet instead would surely be … Continue reading “1. How I came to write my poems from poems”
2. Changing attitudes: nature
A central focus in my poems is the way many attitudes have, inevitably, changed over the centuries. For example, I was moved by the poignant realisation that so many of the older poets saw Nature as an eternal power, as in Gerard Manley Hopkins’ God’s Grandeur: “Nature is never spent …. There lie the dearest, … Continue reading “2. Changing attitudes: nature”
3. Changing attitudes: faith
The vivid immediacy of a divine presence is so prevalent in seventeenth century metaphysical poetry. John Donne’s hope of redemption and terror of damnation course through his religious sonnets. George Herbert’s unquestioning closeness to his creator is powerful, whether in a spirit of rebellion (The Collar) or of utter humility and trust (Love). I never … Continue reading “3. Changing attitudes: faith”
4. Changing attitudes: faith and climate change
Matthew Arnold’s sublime poem Dover Beach shows his age’s fear at the growing loss of faith, so troubling to many Victorians when long-held certainties about creation were being challenged. Arnold uses the metaphor of “The Sea of Faith”, once a calm, moonlit sea “at the full” but now ebbing inexorably away – his final image … Continue reading “4. Changing attitudes: faith and climate change”