poetry – lucy crispin, poet

something completely different

Sep 17, 2024 #Anagremmer, #Oerreira, #Peter Perreira, #poem, #poetry, #politics, #wit, #wordplay by Lucy Crispin

One of those poems that’s very pleasing for those of a playing-with-words bent. Here’s ‘Anagrammer‘ by Peter Perreira for you to enjoy.

news, poetry, publications

cheerful news

Sep 16, 2024 #getting the summer clothes out of storage, #poem, #poetry, #Shelley Memorial Prize by Lucy Crispin

Hello dear readers. It’s very cheering to be able to say I won a prize in a competition (although you have won third prize in a competition sounds very much like Monopoly!). ‘getting the summer clothes out of storage’ is one of the poems from the new book (light-of-day date as yet unknown), but you can read it here, if you’d like to.
Usual post will be up tomorrow. See you then.

poetry appreciation, reflection

emptying the handbag of my mind

Sep 3, 2024 #acceptance, #Anthony Hopkins, #Berry, #despair, #fear, #Freud's Last session, #Frost, #grief, #Keats, #Ode on Melancholy, #pain, #poem, #poetry, #RObert Frost, #sorrow, #the peace of wild things, #wendell berry by Lucy Crispin

Last time I said I’d return to Keats and ‘glut[ting] thy sorrow on a morning rose‘, but I’ve got a bit distracted by a Frost poem. Maybe it’s not distraction, though. Perhaps I haven’t had enough coffee yet to remember why the poem joined up—in my head at least—with the Keats and, according to my notes, Frankenstein and the recent film Freud’s Last Session (!). Blimey. Perhaps best just read it before I say any more. Here’s ‘Acceptance‘ by Robert Frost.

poetry, poetry appreciation, reflection

talking or lying…?

Aug 6, 2024 #connection, #courage, #despair, #fear, #honesty, #intimacy, #isolation, #Larkin, #Philip Larkin, #poem, #poetry, #relationship, #Talking in Bed by Lucy Crispin

A friend of mine recently dealt with a potentially tricky situation between us with tremendous grace and courage. Their honesty brought to mind this poem about its opposite—a poem I have long loved with a deep sense of melancholy, fearing that it spoke The Truth. It’s always a great relief when I remember the poem speaks the poet’s truth, with which we all may resonate sometimes, but which need not be The Whole or Only. See what you think about Larkin’s ‘Talking in Bed‘:

poetry appreciation

a touch of cold

Oct 14, 2021 #autumn, #Frost, #Hulme, #image, #Imagism, #Imagist, #moon, #natural world, #peace, #poem, #poetry, #stars, #TE Hulme by Lucy Crispin

You know that first smell of autumn? The first morning you leave the house and the air is different?—crisper, with that first whiff of deliciously decaying leaves? That’s one of my favourite moments in the year, and I’ve been looking for a poem which celebrates it. So far I haven’t found quite the thing—do let me know if you know one—but I did like the reference to ‘A touch of cold’ in this small but lovely poem, ‘Autumn‘, by TE Hulme. See what you think.

poetry appreciation

message in a bottle

Oct 7, 2021 #anon., #art, #beauty, #communication, #function of art, #Joyce Glassman, #longing, #message in a bottle, #poet, #poetry, #sorrow, #transmission, #truth, #Western Wind, #Westron Wind, #yearning by Lucy Crispin

I was interested, the other week, to come across these words from Joyce Glassman: “Artists are nourished more by each other than by fame or by the public. To give one’s work to the world is an experience of peculiar emptiness. The work goes away from the artist into a void, like a message stuck into a bottle and flung into the sea.”

poetry appreciation

an independent ambassador for conscience

Here’s Ellen Hinsey on poetry: ‘Poetry is the conscience of a society… No individual poem can stop a war—that’s what diplomacy is supposed to do. But poetry is an independent ambassador for conscience: it answers to no one, it crosses borders without a passport, and it speaks the truth. That’s why… it is one of the most powerful of the arts”. Given what’s been going on in the world these last couple of weeks it feels like one of those too-apt-to-be-a-coincidence coincidences that I should meet Hinsey’s words in the same week as someone should bring to the 42 group Larkin’s ‘Homage to a Government’.

poetry appreciation

the gifts of loss

Aug 19, 2021 #bereavement, #change, #grief, #grieving, #hope, #loss, #magic realism, #Moving forward, #music, #openness, #poetry, #Rilke, #sorrow by Lucy Crispin

This week—today, in fact, if you read this on a Friday—I’m having to do a big bit of letting go. The house where my Mum and Dad lived is now sold, and I’m up in Scotland, emptying the last bits of furniture, locking the door and walking away for the last time. Like much that has happened in my life (let alone in the wider world) over the last couple of years, this feels too big and disturbing to understand at once. I feel as though I can’t think and feel all the “necessary” things, and get in a sort of panic. Just the right time, then, to read a poem about letting go and feel it find me in the way that poetry (like music) can. Here is ‘Moving Forward‘ by Rilke.

news

I always have time for sheep

Aug 12, 2021 #poem, #poetry, #poetry prize, #segora competition, #the behaviours of sheep by Lucy Crispin

Have I mentioned before that I don’t know of any poet who’s written more poems about sheep than I have? I’m willing to be proved wrong on that one—do send me some sheep links—but in the meantime, some sheep have won me a competition…

poetry appreciation

where the enchanted live

Aug 5, 2021 #Brendel playing schubert, #choir, #escape, #freedom, #Lisel mueller, #live music, #lockdown, #mueller, #music, #poem, #poetry, #rapture, #reopening, #singing, #transport by Lucy Crispin

Like many singers, I’m starting to look forward to stepping back into some version, at least, of the regular rhythm of rehearsing and performing which has been part of the structure of my life for—jings—4 decades now. At an informal sing in someone’s garden the other week (I can’t really dignify it by the title of rehearsal!) it was chastening to realise how much our voices have suffered from separation and silence. But it was still delicious to come together to make music, croaky and awkward as it was. I love the way Lisel Mueller honours and articulates the particular joy of live music (in the poem’s case, of listening to it). Read ‘Brendel Playing Schubert‘ or have it read to you (press the little arrow at the top. Poem starts c. 3.10.)

Tag: poetry