‘Morning Poem’ is a poem by the American poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019), a poet who has perhaps not received as much attention from critics as she deserves. It’s been estimated that she was the bestselling poet in the United States at the time of her death, so a few words […]
‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’ is a well-known poem by Maya Angelou (1928-2014). It is the title poem from Angelou’s 1993 collection Life Doesn’t Frighten Me, which was marketed as a children’s book although Angelou did not originally conceive the poems as being specifically for children.
Let’s begin our exploration of Churchill’s famous ‘fight them on the beaches’ speech with a few problematic statements: In June 1940, Winston Churchill gave a speech which roused and inspired the whole of Britain. He pledged to ‘fight on the beaches’ and never surrender. When he read the words out […]
‘The Distances’ is a short story by the Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar (1914-84), published in his 1951 collection Bestiary. In the story, a woman discovers her ‘double’ while dreaming and then, in the real world, exchanges identities with this other woman. Like many of Julio Cortázar’s short stories, ‘The Distances’ […]
‘Firework’ is one of Katy Perry’s best-known songs, and its lyrics were inspired by a classic work of literature, so we thought we’d consider Katy Perry’s song from a broadly ‘literary’ perspective. What is the meaning of the song’s lyrics? And which literary classic influenced the writing of those lyrics?