Such is the reputation of Poetry London, and its poetry competition, that I knew the standard would be high and my choices would be tough. I had the privilege of judging this competition …
The quick and the dead
Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Beginning of Spring is set at that moment in Moscow when the change of seasons is marked by a quickening sense of liquefying movement: the melting of …
The Odd Couple
The most unexpected, and as it turned out inspiring, book I read last year was Airmail (Bloodaxe, 2013), a collection of letters between the American poet Robert Bly and the Swedish Nobel …
Instruments of the imagination
In a recent feature in the FT, a journalist quotes the painter Frank Auerbach as saying ‘some people are natural draughtsmen. I sometimes feel sorry for them – you have to work through …
Competition 2013: Judge’s Report – Pascale Petit
Judging the Poetry London competition was like going on a journey. Sometimes I recognised the terrain; often it was over-familiar. Then suddenly I’d get a jolt and wonder where I …
Poetry London says farewell to Colette Bryce
In a recent collection of essays Al Alvarez (adept at poker and extreme sport, and advocate in 1966 of new American poets ‘Beyond the Gentility Principle’) describes the writer alone …
Poetry Matters
Poetry London started life back in 1988 as Poetry London Newsletter, produced with the aid of an Amstrad PCW and intermittent access to a photocopier. It was a project born of enthusiasm …
The Willow Pattern
Observe my delicate Koong-see, whey-faced beside the lattice fence and warming in her palm my gift of an ivory bead. In the palace garden’s midnight blue the apple tree …
What are poets for?
‘Who wants poets in lean years?’ That was how Michael Hamburger translated the phrase ‘wozu Dichter in dürftiger Zeit?’, from Hölderlin’s poem ‘Bread and Wine’. ‘What are poets for in …
Competition 2012: Judge’s Report – Neil Astley
The process of judging a poetry competition can feel like a bombardment: hundreds of poems all clamouring for attention, almost crying out Choose me! I’m the poem you want! It’s something of …
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