By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
February is a month of transitions, as the cold weather and short days begin to give way to the nascent signs of spring, that season that is yet powerless to be born. (Here we must apologise to our readers in the southern hemisphere, and hope you’ll forgive our northern hemispherical bias.) Below are five of the best poems for the month of February.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Are there really that many classic poems about mice, rats, and other rodents? Are there enough to compile a definitive ‘top ten’ list of the best mouse poems? We think so – and we hope the following collection of classic rodent poems supports such a claim. From classic children’s poems to satirical poems to poems about grief, these poems all use mice and other rodents to create great and memorable poetry.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Carol Ann Duffy (b. 1955) was the UK Poet Laureate from 2009 until 2019, but she has been a major voice in contemporary British poetry for over thirty years, since her first collection, Standing Female Nude
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Andrew Marvell (1621-78) is widely regarded as one of the greatest English poets of the seventeenth century. His work is often associated with the Metaphysical Poets. But which are Marvell’s best poems? Below we’ve selected ten of Andrew Marvell’s most famous and popular poems and said a little bit about them. The title of each poem leads through to the text of the poem.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Poetry and the church have enjoyed a long interconnected history, but what are the very best English poems about churches specifically, rather than simply ‘the church’? What great poems have been set in churchyards or among pews, at the altar or in the church crypt? The selection below constitutes our attempt to compile a ‘top ten’ of the finest church poems in all of English literature.