A reading of a modern elegy Stephen Spender (1909-95) said of Tony Harrison’s series of elegies for his parents that they were the sort of poetry he felt he’d been waiting his whole life for. ‘Timer’, which was published in Harrison’s 1981 collection The School of Eloquence, is one of […]
A reading of one of his best poems Everything about ‘Poem’ by Simon Armitage is understated. It opens with a casual ‘And’ (‘And if it snowed’), as if merely a continuation of something already in progress. It has an ‘anti-title’ which refuses to comment on the content of the poem […]
A summary of a Rossetti poem by Dr Oliver Tearle ‘Good Friday’ was published in Christina Rossetti’s 1866 collection The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems. The poem is about Rossetti’s struggle to feel close to Christ and the teachings of Christianity, and to weep for the sacrifice he made. Below […]