Poetry Forum

One that I love is the last line from 'Love in the Asylum' by Dylan Thomas...

"And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last
I may without fail
Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars."

A Van poem. I like it, but I'm a fan. And even I didn't recognise all the references. Interestingly enough, I didn't spot any in the last four lines, although I suspect that "It doesn't matter" must be one. But how much of you is really in here, Stephen? (A lot, I suppose, if one counts a...

Sorry it was too easy...

Mary Jane...

Thanks mate, very useful!

Sure thing mate

I see what you mean by 'poemy', Stephen - rivers of wind and leaves dancing, but it's just a matter of putting a bit of a twist on what you're saying. I like the link to the scientific at the end - perhaps you could turn it round and describe the movement of the leaves and the glow of the sun in a ...

I definitely have a long way to go before my poems are better. I can't help but think that mine are all too 'poemy' haha, I signed up for a free poetry course online though, so hopefully I will learn some stuff in that when it starts (As well as from the always helpful critiques on here).

I saw her walking down Botanic Avenue when the sun shone and on the train from Belfast, with the light in my head the sound of Sweet Thing came through the ether. Birds flutter over the golden lough. Meanwhile, a child who has no name strolls along the seashore. Winter is starting to give way to spr...

Suzanne...

Just finished reading Ulysses Marks out of ten? 9! Difficult to say anything that hasn't been said about it already, but I thought it was incredible and Joyce is a genius (Which I already knew, Dubliners and Portrait are two of my favourite books, hence my username). It was truly amazing, almost in...

Just finished reading Ulysses

Thanks chaps...no typo, it's meant to be read in a dundee accent...kinda....meaning..?...I just was moved by the feeling of lost or missed opportunity the Elliot's poem instilled in me, and I wrote that as a lighthearted riposte to remind myself to make the most of life....thank you for your commen...

Hey, I am new also. This is a good place

Joe Cocker is from Yorkshire

That's a stunning piece, written with a real passion for the sounds of the words. Must be amazing to hear it read. You are in luck! haha for another poetry site I am on I did a reading of it. My accent isn't the most pleasant for reading poetry, certainly no Seamus Heaney, but for a poem like this ...

Got any good examples of John Clare's work? I find this very interesting, the idea of cultural identity and how this manifests itself in poetry (from both the reader and the writer). It is a fascinating subject. It's difficult to pinpoint a single poem of Clare's that represents the county, it's mo...

I'm from Northampton so it stands to reason that I like John Clare's work. He obviously lived in a different time but there's a definite recognition in the landscape he writes about that goes further than the place names and colloquialisms. Alan Moore, another Northamptonian, also writes about our ...

Well chosen words and images, redolent of black and White photos of checkpoints etc. I like your clever use of red and green disturbing the black and white image, I'm my mind like the girl in the red dress in schindlers list against the black and white. Not keen on last line as your poem seems impa...

Yep, I was thinking the same thing, that first line definitely needs to go. In fact, I'd go further and lose the first two lines to give a much more powerful opening with: "Balaclavas and makrolon face-shields." In the bit where it changes tone in the middle, this bit: As I look through t...

Thanks for the feedback fellas, much appreciated.

There aren't any considerable poets that come from the same place I do but - although it's a pretty obvious choice - my background and that of Seamus Heaney aren't that dissimilar. Apart from the history of centuries of internecine hatred, of course. But there is often a sense of recognition about ...

More poems than poets in my case. I do not have any of the language, but know the poem from the celebrated translation by Iain Crichton Smith....Sorley MacLean's Hallaig. It was also famously set to music by Martyn Bennett....attached. There was a time when I would have said "Time, the deer???...

I feel pathos looking at these old photographs. Forty years of murder. Balaclavas and makrolon face-shields. AK-47s and SLRs. Civil rights marches, Orange parades and countless riots. As I look through the photos I wonder which side those mourners were on, and whether or not those children grew up t...

Hello, as others have said I think you have some interesting imagery. I like "fleshy folds of my normality" in particular as well. I do also agree that you need to work on your punctuation in order to help it read better. One glaring example for me is the lines "A beautiful twisted an...