In The Poetry

People occasionally ask me “which is your favourite poem?”, or “which do you think is your best poem?”, or “if there was only one poem of yours that was going to survive, which would you like it to be?”. And I quite often, rather riskily, name ‘Monologue in the Valley of the Kings’. [...]

My wife, to whom I’ve been married since 1955, rather ruefully says now and again that I don’t seem to have written any real love poems for her, or not for a very long time. Here’s about as close as I can get to a love poem. (She does like this one.)

Together, Apart

Too [...]

I’ll end with a poem which, quite often, when I give a poetry reading, I end with – I don’t quite know why, it seems to be a sort of little credo of mine.

Simple Poem

I shall make it simple so you understand.
Making it simple will make it clear for me.
When you have read it, take [...]

I think I’ve said already that I feel myself that I’m an archaeologist manque – certainly I’m terribly keen on picking things up off the ground, particularly interested in pottery, and the next poem is about picking up a piece of pottery, but it’s also I think about the past and ones fascination with the [...]