K. Morris's Blog, page 632
November 24, 2016
The Owl and the Nightingale – A Medieval Poem
The Owl and the Nightingale is a late 12th/early 13thcentury Middle English poem, those with little practice reading in Middle English can understand it, but there are various translations online as well as printed ones. This poem has a mysterious authorship, which I will go into later, but for now, there is no knowledge of a confirmed author.
The poem is about, would you believe it, an owl and a nightingale, they are having a debate about whose song is superior, which, inevit...
November 23, 2016
The Poet and the Workman
Some Thursday morning humour.
Poet: “Why do you dig a hole my good man?”
Workman: “Because I can,
While those who are not able
Sit at a table,
Wasting time
Trying to make their verses rhyme”!
Poet: “I have a plan
To make my lines scan.
Kindly move your van
And I will be on my way
To versify the livelong day”.
“Workman: Why bless my soul
This poet droll
So intent was he on his goal
Of writing verse,
That the man’s fallen into that there hole,
To be a rhymer is most perverse”!...
Does Poetry Need To Rhyme?
A couple of days ago, an acquaintance asked me whether poetry needs to rhyme. My response was that there is no necessity as regards the use of rhyming in poetry. Eliot’s The Wasteland springs to mind as a poem where free verse is employed throughout large portions of the work.
Most of my own poetry does utilise a rhyming scheme. I feel most comfortable expressing myself in rhyme. This does not, however mean that my poems rhyme throughout, (there is no point in sticking to a rigid rhyming sche...
10 Very Short English Poems by Female Poets
The best short poems by women writers
These are ten of the best short poems by women poets from over three centuries of English poetry. We’ve interpreted ‘short’ here to mean very short: only one is as long as 13 lines, and none of the other poems is longer than ten lines, which we feel is pretty short for a poem. We hope you enjoy this selection. Click on the title of each short poem to read it.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ‘A Summary of Lord Lyttleton’s “Advice to a La...
November 22, 2016
Calling Up Demons
If you call up a demon, don’t be surprised
When it does arise
As some monster from the deep
And into your heart creep.
We at our own creations weep
But can not keep
Our desire
To play with hell’s fire
Under control.
The devil we did create
And, he will our soul take.
Rhodes
—
Rhodes is in his grave
Long since.
Oxford students wince
And call
For his statue to fall,
Yet continue to take the cash
Of one they would consign to history’s trash.
We all have feet of clay.
How easy it is to judge
And bare a grudge
Towards those who have passed away,
For the dead can nothing say
To mitigate
The hate
Of callow youth,
So convinced are they of their own rectitude an...
November 21, 2016
My interview on Croydon Radio, at 5:15 pm this Saturday (26 November)
I will be spending part of the week preparing for my interview this coming Saturday (26 November, at 5:15 pm, on Croydon Radio). The interview will be streamed live on Croydon Radio’s website and will also be available as a podcast, (http://croydonradio.com/).
During the programme, I hope to read a couple of my poems. I have yet to determine which of them to recite. I am, however considering reading my poem “Owl”:
“I have lain awake listening for the owl’s cry.
A note that chills
Thrills
The...
November 20, 2016
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Kevin
THE PAIN COLLECTOR
Free verse is all about exploration. Through it we explore our world as it is and all those possible worlds that might exist in other realities. Not all such thought journeys are in sweetness and light, some delve into very dark corners. The person, subject of the exercise below, inhabits one of those dark corners. Many families, perhaps your own, has a member who might resemble this person.
She sits alone
On a straight-backed chair
In a darkened room
Occasionally she will glance
T...
My Old Clock I Wind
My old clock I wind
And much philosophy therein find.
I can bring
The pendulum’s swing
To a stop With my hand,
Yet I can not command
Time to default
On his duty and halt
The passing of the years.
He has no ears
For our laughter and tears
And his sickle will swing on
Long after we are gone.
