I love the idea of Castaway Poems - I hope this is the start of a new series. Beautifully evoked choices by Katherine Towers and it was lovely being directed to (for me) poets I only knew of but now will really get to know. My choices would be conventional but nonetheless wonderful - Keats's "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" for the music of the last line "silent on a peak in Darien"; Tennyson's "Morte d'Arthur" for its heartbreaking dying fall "a black dot vanishing"; Hopkins's "Margaret are you grieving" because I know it by heart and its sadness is consoling and there are such depths there.
Looking forward to more, and/or maybe choices to fit occasions - my best friend's wife has just died and I am sharing with him the stark un-consolation of Larkin's "Aubade", Vernon Scannell's "Missing Things" and Siegfried Sassoon's plangent ebullience in "Everyone Sang". Somehow, in extremis, they work, they help. Thank God for poetry and for so much to discover and share.
Hi Stephen, if you look on our website https://thefridaypoem.com you'll find a number of other Castaway pieces from various poets. Enjoy, and thanks for your lovely response to this one. Best, Hilary
I love the idea of Castaway Poems - I hope this is the start of a new series. Beautifully evoked choices by Katherine Towers and it was lovely being directed to (for me) poets I only knew of but now will really get to know. My choices would be conventional but nonetheless wonderful - Keats's "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" for the music of the last line "silent on a peak in Darien"; Tennyson's "Morte d'Arthur" for its heartbreaking dying fall "a black dot vanishing"; Hopkins's "Margaret are you grieving" because I know it by heart and its sadness is consoling and there are such depths there.
Looking forward to more, and/or maybe choices to fit occasions - my best friend's wife has just died and I am sharing with him the stark un-consolation of Larkin's "Aubade", Vernon Scannell's "Missing Things" and Siegfried Sassoon's plangent ebullience in "Everyone Sang". Somehow, in extremis, they work, they help. Thank God for poetry and for so much to discover and share.
Hi Stephen, if you look on our website https://thefridaypoem.com you'll find a number of other Castaway pieces from various poets. Enjoy, and thanks for your lovely response to this one. Best, Hilary
great! will investigate. Thanks for letting me know.
https://thefridaypoem.com/archive/?_search=castaway