The Incident of the Poem at the Festival
It wasn’t my fault. I was eight years old, a natural mimic and I always did as I was told. The only thing I remember about the whole affair is the … Continue reading
Vulpes Random: On marking a poetry exam
I collect my share of the poetry exam scripts, put them in my bike pannier, and cycle home. I put them on the table, close my laptop to avoid distracting emails, find … Continue reading
Persian Poems selected and edited by Peter Washington
There is no other way of putting it. I was expecting mysticism and intricate illusions to hidden truths in the Everyman anthology of Persian Poems. Instead I found myself in … Continue reading
Poems from Oby, by George MacBeth
A few weeks ago I shared here my discovery that the tiny settlement of Oby in the Norfolk Broads had a dual literary heritage – the setting for Sylvia Townsend … Continue reading
Poetry Week on VL
Welcome to our 9th Annual Poetry Week! It’s the week every spring where Vulpes Libris highlights the undervalued art of verse. This year we have a bit more of a … Continue reading
Re-reading Lorca in Andalucía
When Bookfox Jackie declared the latest Poetry Week on Vulpes Libris, I had my response ready made. I had just been on holiday in Andalucía, and it had inspired me … Continue reading
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
Most of the poems I’ve done for this week in the past have been thoses I’ve liked for decades. Though I’ve enjoyed Maya Angelou’s work for years, I had never … Continue reading
A thousand intermediate shades of grey.
I’m sixty years old. I don’t tell you this to elicit sympathy or admiring cries of ‘Gosh, you don’t look it!’, I tell you so that you’ll have some idea … Continue reading
Poetry Week on VL
Welcome to our 8th Annual Poetry Week! Along with warming temperatures, blossoming trees and gardens filled with new plants and flowers, spring also brings our focus on verse. It seems … Continue reading
William Shakespeare. Poetry selected by Ted Hughes.
This elegant book is part of a series published by Faber, of poetry selected by poets. So, we have for instance W B Yeats selected by Seamus Heaney, Ezra Pound … Continue reading
The Poetry of Cats, a collection
As an animal lover, I was really looking forward to this topical little volume. Boy, was I disappointed! For one thing, at least a fourth of the offerings were about … Continue reading
A poem found on the Road to Nowhere – Norman Nicholson’s ‘Rising Five’.
Millom in Cumbria was once a rural community with a scattered population that relied heavily on farming and fishing to scratch a living. All of that changed forever in the … Continue reading
Jim Carruth’s Killochries
This is a poem to be read in an evening, a novella in half-lines of sparse words, of how a young man’s life gets changed because his mum Lizzie sends him … Continue reading
Poetry Week on VL
Welcome to Vulpes Libris’ 7th Annual Poetry Week! We continue our tradition of spotlighting an often under-appreciated literary form. This year’s spring time salute ranges from rural life to Shakespeare … Continue reading
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