poetry

1y

English poet and novelist Letitia Elizabeth Landon died #OTD in 1838.

Her first major breakthrough came with The Improvisatrice and thence she developed the metrical romance towards the Victorian ideal of the Victorian monologue, influencing fellow English writers such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson and Christina Rossetti.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letitia_Elizabeth_Landon

Books about Letitia Elizabeth Landon at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56166

#books #literature #poetry

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838); variation of the original painting by Daniel Maclise.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L.E.L.) was a renowned English poet and novelist of the early 19th century, known for her Romantic works. In the portrait by Daniel Maclise, she is depicted with a delicate and refined appearance, typical of Romantic portraiture of the time. The original shows her seated gracefully, with soft curls framing her face, gazing thoughtfully into the distance. Her attire consists of elegant 19th-century clothing, with rich textures and details.

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170d

I still think that Dylan Thomas' "Fern Hill" is a perfect poem... So I'm sharing it here, if you need a poem today. Maybe read it out loud, it's got such a lovely music to it.

https://poets.org/poem/fern-hill

#poetry #mastopoets #wales #autisticJoy #literature

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263d

He has gone down into darkness at the wrecked end of the year
And is lying, gaberlunzie, in the needled nest of frost…

—Gerry Cambridge, “Processional at the Winter Solstice”
published in Notes for Lighting a Fire (HappenStance Press 2012)

https://happenstancepress.com/index.php/shop/product/4-notes-for-lighting-a-fire-gerry-cambridge/category_pathway-12

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #midwinter #solstice

Processional at the Winter Solstice
by Gerry Cambridge

He has gone down into darkness at the wrecked end of the year
And is lying, gaberlunzie, in the needled nest of frost.
The arctic thrushes call for him although he cannot hear,

And the worm too understands him in the chilled grip of its dark,
And the ptarmigan in blizzards where no thought is worth a crumb,
And treecreepers in shivering puffs in Wellingtonias’ bark.

Shop windows glint in city lights like ice and sky, but still
No tinsel gifts can touch him, freed to silence like a stone’s;
His face is white as paper’s white in miles-high midnight chill.

He lies as plain as frost-dust where those starving thrushes call,
And his lime and ray-struck armoury could hardly be less small
On the anvil of beginnings in the sun’s gate on the wall.

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265d

Coming up Buchanan Street, quickly, on a sharp winter evening
a young man and two girls, under the Christmas lights –
The young man carries a new guitar in his arms,
the girl on the inside carries a very young baby,
and the girl on the outside carries a chihuahua…

—Edwin Morgan, “Trio”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Glasgow #Christmas #BuchananStreet #EdwinMorgan

Trio
by Edwin Morgan

Coming up Buchanan Street, quickly, on a sharp winter evening
a young man and two girls, under the Christmas lights –
The young man carries a new guitar in his arms,
the girl on the inside carries a very young baby,
and the girl on the outside carries a chihuahua.
And the three of them are laughing, their breath rises
in a cloud of happiness, and as they pass
the boy says, “Wait till he sees this but!”
The chihuahua has a tiny Royal Stewart tartan coat like a teapot-holder,
the baby in its white shawl is all bright eyes and mouth like favours in a fresh sweet cake,
the guitar swells out under its milky plastic cover, tied at the neck with silver tinsel tape and a brisk sprig of mistletoe.
Orphean sprig! Melting baby! Warm chihuahua!
The vale of tears is powerless before you.
Whether Christ is born, or is not born, you
put paid to fate, it abdicates
under the Christmas lights.
Monsters of the year
go blank, are scattered back,
can’t bear this march of three.

– And the three have passed, vanished in the crowd
(yet not vanished, for in their arms they wind
the life of men and beasts, and music,
laughter ringing them round like a guard)
at the end of this winter’s day.

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1y

#OTD in 1917.

The 51-year-old poet W. B. Yeats marries 25-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees at Harrow Road register office in London, with Ezra Pound as best man, a couple of months after Yeats' proposal of marriage to his ex-mistress's daughter, Iseult Gonne, is rejected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats#Marriage_to_Georgie_Hyde-Lees

Books by W. B. Yeats at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1719

#books #literature #poetry

Walter de la Mare, Bertha Georgie Yeats (née Hyde-Lees), William Butler Yeats, unknown woman, summer 1930; photo by Lady Ottoline Morrell.

In the image, the group is outdoors, likely in a garden or rural setting, characteristic of Lady Ottoline's gatherings at her homes. The lighting is soft, typical of an English summer, lending a relaxed and somewhat nostalgic quality to the photograph.

Walter de la Mare, the English poet and author, stands or sits calmly, perhaps slightly to one side.

Bertha Georgie Yeats (née Hyde-Lees), the wife of William Butler Yeats, appears in the photograph with a sense of quiet elegance.

William Butler Yeats, the famed Irish poet, stands or sits prominently in the image, his distinctive features easily recognizable.

The unknown woman is present alongside the others, her identity and role a mystery, adding an air of intrigue to the photograph.

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1y

Dutch author and poet Isabelle de Charrière, known as Belle van Zuylen, was born #OTD in 1740.

She is now best known for her letters and novels, although she also wrote pamphlets, music and plays. She took a keen interest in the society and politics of her age, and her work around the time of the French Revolution is regarded as being of particular interest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle_de_Charri%C3%A8re

Books by Isabelle de Charrière at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Isabelle+de+Charri%C3%A8re&submit_search=Go%21

#books #literature #poetry

Isabelle de Charrière by Jens Juel, (1777), Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Neuchâtel.

Jens Juel - http://www.charriere.nl/images/juel.htm [1]

Isabelle de Charrière, born Isabelle Agneta Elisabeth van Tuyll van Serooskerken, known as Belle de Zuylen (1740-1805)

Edited 1y ago

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245d

This was the year before the year
that collapsed on us, a roof brought down by snow.
The year of riding through abandoned stations
on the riverside line that never crossed the river
but danced among warehouses, silos and factories (deceased)
beside battleships settling into red mud…

—Pippa Little, “This Was the Year”
published in OVERWINTERING (Carcanet, 2012)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781906188061/overwintering/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

This Was the Year
by Pippa Little

This was the year before the year
that collapsed on us, a roof brought down by snow.
The year of riding through abandoned stations
on the riverside line that never crossed the river
but danced among warehouses, silos and factories (deceased)
beside battleships settling into red mud.
This was the year that, too exhausted to sleep,
I boiled down the pink and ivory and blue of other women’s hands
into a single grey slab. The soap pot next the soup,
fumes of gardenia and bone.
This was the year we were always coming home.
Three steps and a garden where the splayed trike in the frost said
better to have careless love than none at all.
This was the year before the year
I found out that we are fused from lightning, our bodies
maps across which electrical storms flare
and move on. This was the year
extremely far rooftops and lit windows
seen from a plane flying its late night mission
had their glow zapped by pinball fire.
This was the year I closed the door underneath the porch light
and stood out on the first of the three front steps, listening.
Our children’s beds expecting their bodies
to come warm them like small fires
but growing cold with waiting.

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264d

Anette Degott’s talk ‘“No Extra Words” – The Scottish Poet Norman MacCaig (1910–1996)’, recorded on 16 December

@litstudies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3OGDm8x6ak

#Scottish #literature #poetry #NormanMacCaig #20thcentury

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223d

It is late January and at last the snow.
I lie back dreaming about Glencoe
as fluent, hungry, dressed in red,
you climb up and over me…

—Andrew Greig, “The Winter Climbing”
Published in Getting Higher: The Complete Mountain Poems (Polygon, 2011)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/getting-higher-2/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #mountains #mountaineering #climbing #winter #Glencoe

The Winter Climbing
Andrew Greig

It is late January and at last the snow.
I lie back dreaming about Glencoe
as fluent, hungry, dressed in red,
you climb up and over me. That passion
claimed the darkest, useless months
for risk and play. You rise
up on me, I rise through you ...

The shadowed face of Aonach Dubh
where Mal first took me climbing
and as we clanked exhausted, happy,
downwards through the dark, I asked
“What route was that?” “Call it
what you want – it’s new.”

You reach the top and exit out;
from way above, your cry comes down.
The rope pulls tight. What shall we call
this new thing we’re about?
These days we live in taking
care and chances. Why name it?
My heart is in my mouth as I shout Climbing ...

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263d

Angus at midwinter
or near as makes no odds –
faint shadows raxed
over fields of dour earth,

every fairmer’s fenceposts
splashed with gold.

—Kathleen Jamie, “Solstice II”
in SELECTED POEMS (Picador 2018

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/selected-poems/9781509882953

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #midwinter #solstice

Solstice II
by Kathleen Jamie

Here comes the sun
summiting the headland – pow!
straight through the windows of the 10.19
– and here's us passengers,
splendid and blinking
like we're all re-born,
remade exactly, and just where we left off:
the students, the toddler, the tattoo'd lass,
the half dozen roustabouts
headed off-shore
cracking more beers
and more jokes.
Angus at midwinter
or near as makes no odds –
faint shadows raxed
over fields of dour earth,

every fairmer's fenceposts
splashed with gold.

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262d

5 Christmas Poems That Have Been Treasured Since the 1800s

https://www.thecollector.com/19th-century-christmas-poems/

"A Visit From St. Nicholas (Twas the Night Before Christmas)" at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=A+Visit+From+St.+Nicholas

Alfred Tennyson at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2987

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/16

Christina Rossetti at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/7041

#books #poetry #literature

Illustration from "Twas the Night before Christmas: A Visit from St. Nicholas" at PG. It shows a mantel with Christmas stockings hanging from it. On top of the mantel is a clock and two vases on each side.

Edited 262d ago

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245d

Poetry Workshops with Rebecca Sharp
17 & 24 January, Arbroath – free, ticketed

Led by poet & playwright Rebecca Sharp, these workshops will explore the ways stories are preserved, forgotten, or reinvented – from history to legends & folklore. No experience needed.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poetry-workshop-with-rebecca-sharp-tickets-1977268333813

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poetryworkshop #history #legend #folklore

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245d

Snaw is bluffertin’ the toun,
Gurly wunds are roustin’ roun’,
Peety fowk in broken shoon
This winter nicht…

—Helen Burness Cruickshank (1886–1975), “Song of Pity for Refugees”
published in Collected Poems (Reprographia, 1971)

#Scottish #literature #Scots #Scotslanguage #poem #poetry #refugees #winter

Song of Pity for Refugees
by Helen Burness Cruickshank

Snaw is bluffertin’ the toun,
Gurly wunds are roustin’ roun’,
Peety fowk in broken shoon
This winter nicht.

Peety help the weary auld,
Claes nor fire to fend aff cauld,
Hoose nor ha’ them safe to hauld
This winter nicht.

Peety wham in a’ the warld
Fortune fell through hell has harled,
Hungert, hameless, broken, marled,
This winter nicht.

Peety men withooten kin,
Ne’er a freend to cry them ben,
Nane their deein’ sauls to sain
This winter nicht.

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268d

#GifsArtidote articles are soon on #libcom.org too.

and check out my #website for all my #blog, #podcast, #poetry, #art, #photography & #woodwork here:

https://gifsartidote.life

Edited 268d ago

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259d

Yeats and the Occult Imagination

Beneath his poems lay a lifelong devotion to magic, divination, and a visionary system that shaped his most prophetic work.

By: Gus Mitchell

https://daily.jstor.org/yeats-and-the-occult-imagination/

Yeats at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1719

#books #literature #poetry

William B Yeats.

The photograph shows Yeats as a young man, likely in his twenties or early thirties, photographed from the chest up in a formal studio portrait style. He faces the camera directly with a serious, contemplative expression.

Yeats has distinctive features including dark, wavy hair swept back from his forehead. He wears small, round wire-rimmed spectacles (pince-nez style, which appear to be clipped to his nose with a cord or chain visible). His face is clean-shaven, revealing refined, angular features with a strong jawline and thoughtful expression.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/WB_Yeats_nd.jpg

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259d

I finally dropped a stack of books on the local bookcrossing shelf, a year later than anticipated.

I came back with a small hardcover book, The Nature of Poetry (1946).

The basic framework proposed in this book remains relevant today, albeit with some marginal caveats.

The chapter is titled as follows:

1. Poetry is exact
2. Poetry is intense
3. Poetry is significant
4. Poetry is concrete
5. Poetry is complex
6. Poetry is rhythmical
7. Poetry is formal

#poetry #jerusalem

(no description)

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1y

#art #history:
‘kiss me & you will see how important i am.’
i'm wishing a sketchy birthday to la plath, born #otd in 1932 - &, even though i've not a chance in high hades of achieving a scintilla of the written eloquence that she displayed, here's my scribbled ode. [cheeky wee thread follows]
#sylviaPlath #illustration #poet #literature #poetry

digital pencil & ink sketch of a young & smiling young writer, sylvia plath. her gaze meets yours & she exudes quiet confidence, her arms crossed in front of her chevron-bearing, cap sleeved collegiate jumper. an abstract broad-stroke background cut through by lines that form a trapezoid sits behind sylvia.
colours are peach, coral, auburn, red & off-white.

digital pencil & ink sketch of a young & smiling young writer, sylvia plath. her gaze meets yours & she exudes quiet confidence, her arms crossed in front of her chevron-bearing, cap sleeved collegiate jumper.
this one's monochrome black & white.

digital pencil & ink sketch of a young & smiling young writer, sylvia plath. her gaze meets yours & she exudes quiet confidence, her arms crossed in front of her chevron-bearing, cap sleeved collegiate jumper.
the background is plain pale turquoise.

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244d

The erotic poems of Bilitis

A lush translation of this late-discovered lesbian poet added to the legacy of Sappho, but there was a trickster at work

by Cat Lambert

https://aeon.co/essays/how-a-playful-literary-hoax-illuminates-classical-queerness

Les Chansons de Bilitis at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4708

#books #literature #poetry

Title : Les chansons de Bilitis : traduit du grec / Pierre Louÿs ; ill. de G. Barbier, gravées sur bois par F. L. Schmied
Author : Louÿs, Pierre (1870-1925). Auteur du texte
Publisher : P. Corrard (Paris)
Publication date : 1922
Contributor : Barbier, George (1882-1932). Illustrateur
Contributor : Schmied, François-Louis (1873-1941). Graveur

The illustration is presented as a decorative page or bookplate, featuring a rectangular composition with elaborate framing. The entire design is set against cream-colored paper with a sophisticated multi-layered border treatment that creates depth and visual richness.

Across the top of the black panel stretches an arbor or trellis laden with grapevines. Standing gracefully on the left side is a woman in classical Greek or Roman dress. Crouched or kneeling on the right side is a striking figure rendered entirely in coral-red or terracotta tones. In the upper portion of the black space, four white bird silhouettes are visible.

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k15164019/f23.item.texteImage#

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1y

In November 1868.

Robert Browning's narrative poem The Ring and the Book begins four-part publication by Smith, Elder & Co. in London. It is a major commercial and critical success.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50954

#books #literature #poetry

This is the cover of The Ring and the Book, circa 1868.

2 ⁄ 7 More details First page of Robert Browning's manuscript of The Ring and the Book (1868)

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244d

Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly…

—“Up in the Morning Early”, by Robert Burns – poet of the people 🫡

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/morning-early/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #18thCentury #RobertBurns #winter

Up in the Morning Early
by Robert Burns

Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,
The drift is driving sairly;
Sae loud and shrill I hear the blast,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

CHORUS
Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure its winter fairly.

The birds sit chittering in the thorn,
A’ day they fare but sparely;
And lang’s the night frae e’en to morn,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

CHORUS
Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure its winter fairly.

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1y

In November 1850

A new edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Poems is published by Chapman & Hall in London, including in volume 2 her Sonnets from the Portuguese.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21161
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2002

#books #literature #poetry

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. After a photograph from life by Talfourd, London. Unknown author Based on a photograph by Talfourd, London - The Project Gutenberg EBook The World's Best Poetry, Volume 03: Sorrow and Consolation by Abbott and Carman.

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146d

I write, erase, rewrite

Erase again, and then

A poppy blooms.

Katsushika Hokusai

#books #poetry #haiku #haikuday
#bookstodon @bookstodon

Haiku Day

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258d

chimney-soaked sunset
mirth struggles for a foothold
these slippery hopes

#DailyHaikuPrompt #vss365 #haiku #senryu #poetry #writing #poem

View over a hedge line across a plowed field, the sky in fading blue, sunset light orange at the horizon where a single tree is silouetted under the setting sun. Rays shoot out from 4 different points on the sun, the longest of the rays reaching back over the hedge line to the foreground.

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146d

the rain has stopped
but still it’s falling
under the trees

—Alan Spence
published in CLEAR LIGHT, @canongatebooks 2012

https://canongate.co.uk/books/94-clear-light/

#Scottish #literature #InternationalHaikuPoetryDay #poem #poetry #haiku #HaikuDay

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181d

In order to help you overcome your fear
of what the Chinese call the Lord of Distress,
I suggest you try confrontation therapy…

—Brian McCabe, “Triskaidekaphobia”
published in ZERO (Polygon, 2009)

Happy Friday the 13th to all who celebrate

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Fridaythe13th #triskaidekaphobia

Triskaidekaphobia
Brian McCabe

In order to help you overcome your fear
of what the Chinese call the Lord of Distress,
I suggest you try confrontation therapy.

So, on Black Friday, the day of Christ’s death –
and yes, the thirteenth apostle betrayed him –
which also, as you have said, happens to be

you and your wife’s thirteenth anniversary,
of which you live in so much dread,
we really have the ideal opportunity.

I want you to reserve a room in the Pyramid Hotel.
Unlike many, it has the floor – before you go in,
you must count them, from the ground –

and a room number 1313. On that date it is free
– I have checked – and you will find the rates
to be very reasonable indeed.

You must invite eleven guests – no more, no less.
The centrepiece at dinner should be a pineapple –
count the rows of scales sloping up to the right.

I want you to request that any flowers sent
have the requisite number of petals:
black-eyed Susans; corn marigolds, ragwort.

Read the Cabala to your guests – the section
about Paradise, the Heavenly Fountains,
the Gates of Mercy, the Rivers of Balsam.

This will be your phobia’s last supper.
I’m afraid I can’t – I’ll be away.
Good luck and happy anniversary.

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