memorable holiday poetry reads
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I will be taking Robert Hass’s The Apple Trees at Olema. And though it is not poetry my recommendation is Strands by Jean Sprackland because it is fantastic prose, a meditation on nature and ecology and living well. A completely marvellous book from start to finish. Anthony Wilson is poet and writing tutor, and a
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During the holidays, I like to get stuck into a thick volume, a Collected or Selected, usually to fill a gap in my knowledge: a poet I’ve read poems by now and again but haven’t ever read in a sustained way. This year, I’m going for Marianne Moore’s Complete Poems. Moore, although generally admired, isn’t
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I’m spending the summer here at home in Edinburgh trying to finish a short story collection, and a holiday seems unlikely, at least for the next few months. I read a lot when I write, with a sort of desperation to remind myself what I should be striving towards. So, my desk is covered in
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Last year, it was Frances Cornford’s Collected Poems. Of course, she’s famous for “To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train”, which has been attacked in recent years by those who put the (wrong) emphasis on the lady’s fatness, instead of the fact that she’s wearing gloves. I love “Childhood”, which begins: I used to
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Carl Sandburg said that “poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes.” This is so true for me! I read little else while I am on holiday — usually stateside on my annual visit home to Wisconsin. My family have a little cabin in the woods near Lake Superior. We are frequently visited by bear and
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I recently sweet-talked my way into a preview copy of Tim Krcmarik’s forthcoming collection The False Lark. What a lark it is. I loaded it onto my Kindle and it has been cheering up my commute by train into London no end. Surrealism is hard to pull off well, but I think what makes Tim’s
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Poetry is perfect to take on holiday, or travelling generally: something to be dipped into, pondered while staring at the sky, chewed over slowly, read aloud to the person flopped onto the grass next to you… or perhaps just to anchor you in calmness while the plane takes off. Simply because of its length –
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I shall be in Welwyn Garden City in August, so perhaps I should take some Glyn Maxwell – and maybe I will. I’m also looking forward to reading a sequence of obscene sonnets by Alistair Elliot – not yet publicly available, but instead you could try his latest, Imaginary Lines (Shoestring) or, if you can
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Here’s just one book I’d recommend for holiday reading. It wasn’t really a holiday, of course. I was in Michigan working, and this wasn’t the book I’d taken with me to read, though I always do take a book of poetry with me when I travel. Poems don’t weigh much, and most collections can be
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The recent poetry book I’d recommend most heartily is Grace by Esther Morgan (Bloodaxe, 2011) It is an utterly absorbing collection full of writing of mesmeric quality which draws the reader in to a world of quiet attentiveness and grounded intensity. An older anthology I’d also recommend very much is Emergency Kit (Faber & Faber,
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If I was to have a holiday, which is always my intention but I never seem to get around to it, I would take my usual six pack of books. They are made up of one novel, one biography/autobiography, one classic and three books of poetry. I will quickly run through my non-poetry books: The
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It’s that time of the year again when the newspapers start bringing out their holiday reading recommendations and ignoring poetry even more than usual. Don’t believe me? Then look at The Guardian‘s list, which is split into sections this year: fiction, crime and non-fiction. To be frank, I’m fed up with this. So I’m reviving
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Jennifer Williams keeps it short and to the point: When on the Aeolian Isles (thanks to a travel bursary but sort of like a holiday as it was so stunning) writing my first collection … Metamorphoses by Ovid Collected Poems by C.P. Cavafy JL Williams’ poetry has been published in journals including Poetry Wales, The
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This is an edited version of a piece that Elspeth wrote for the Scottish Poetry Library‘s Poetry Reader newsletter last year: On the road touring across the USA and Canada as production manager with Puppet State Theatre Company, my bedside book collection a) moves from one hotel nightstand to another on an almost weekly basis b) overlaps
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Here’s a quick round-up of several recommendations from comments on my Facebook note and Ingrid van der Voort’s repost of the same: Ruth Murphy: Alice Walker — Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful. Robert Peake: Marvin Bell’s Wednesday is both portable and rewards re-reading. I like to take multiple passes through slim volumes when
Amy Jo Philip 