Interesting Literature

10 of the Best Poems about Flight and Flying

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Flight is a common trope and topic in poetry, whether it’s the flight of birds or the flight of humans (from Icarus’ doomed flight to the invention of aeroplanes in the early twentieth century).

In this post, we gather together some of the finest poems about flying and flight, taking in everything from aeroplanes to hawks to kestrels to nightingales to … poets themselves, attempting to fly free from the bounds and restrictions of the Earth. If you have your wings ready, let’s dive in.

A Summary and Analysis of Robert Frost’s ‘The Gift Outright’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Gift Outright’ is a Robert Frost poem, written in the 1930s but not published until 1942. The poem had a curious afterlife nearly twenty years later, at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, and it was all down to sunlight.

But before we get to that, it might be worth summarising the meaning of ‘The Gift Outright’, and offering some words of analysis. You can read the poem here.

Fox on a Barn Door: The Poetry of Ted Walker

In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reads nature poetry from a forgotten poet named Ted

Who is being described? This poet was born in England in the 1930s, married his first wife (of two) in 1956 after falling madly in love, made a name for himself as a nature poet (one notable early poem from his first collection featuring a fox), died in his late 60s, and was called Ted? I’m talking not about Ted Hughes but Ted Walker (1934-2004), one of England’s foremost nature poets of the second half of the twentieth century. And yet while Ted Hughes is one of the most recognisable names in twentieth-century English poetry, his namesake has fallen from view.

A Summary and Analysis of the Dick Whittington Fairy Tale

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Everyone in England knows of the story of Dick Whittington and his cat. The tale of the poor boy who becomes Lord Mayor of London has been a staple of British pantomimes since at least the nineteenth century. But where did this classic home-grown English fairy tale come from? And what basis did the Dick Whittington story have in reality? In this post, we’ll offer a brief plot summary of the story and then discuss its origins and meaning, with some notes towards an analysis of the Dick Whittington ‘legend’.

10 of the Best Narrative Poems in English Literature

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

When we think of poems, these days most people probably automatically think of lyric poems: usually quite short poems which describe the poet’s (or an imagined speaker’s) thoughts and feelings. But from the epic poems of Homer to the Border Ballads of the Middle Ages to notable contemporary examples, poetry has often been used to tell a story, too.