Octobers and birthdays loom large in Sylvia Plath’s work, which perhaps isn’t surprising since she was born in October (27 October 1932 – which, it just so happens, was the day Dylan Thomas turned 18 years old). As well as writing ‘Poppies in October’ and ‘Poem for a Birthday’, Sylvia […]
Poems often offer a sense of hope in dark times, and poets down the ages have written wisely and movingly about the need to make a fresh start. Below, we introduce some of our favourite poems about beginnings and new starts – taking in the very beginnings of the universe, […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle salutes a fine twentieth-century poet At Loughborough University where I have my day job, I teach a final-year undergraduate module on twentieth-century poetry. The 12-week semester allows for some marginal non-canonical figures such as the radically daring Hope Mirrlees, […]