‘Uneasy, lovable man, give me your painting
Hand to steady me taking the word-road home’
(W.S.Graham, from ‘The Thermal Stair’, his poem for Peter Lanyon)
‘Had we but World enough and Time’ then those of us who care about poetry would give every poet the attention they deserve. But there are so many poets and so many poems. No-one can read them all, keep them all on the shelf (the shelves are full..), let alone like them all. And so we have to choose. Each of us creates our own, ever-expanding Selected Poems in our heads.
I’ve spent decades buying, borrowing and treasuring books of poetry. I’m in my early sixties. I want to work out which poets and which poems matter the most to me, who I want to take with me from here on in.
It’s no accident that I’ve started this blog in the time of Covid. These are very small deprivations compared to most, but I can’t browse the bookshops, can’t go to poetry readings or leaf through the magazines. The Poetry Library at the South Bank is closed (though I have a handful of their books, borrowed last March) as is the wonderful poetry section at the Barbican Library. There is the online world of course, but I like a book in my hand, so for now I’m reliant on my own resources. Locked down in South London, I’m re-reading the books on my shelves and deciding which ones will stay there.
the word-road home 