Poem a Day

Monday 14 December 2015

An essay on midges

'An Essay on Midges' comes from Jan Wagner's 'A Swarm of Bees' translated by Iain Galbraith (published by Arc, 2015) has won the Popescu Prize for Translation.

The Why and What

My aim is to celebrate poetry as an experience and encourage people to read it preferably out loud, which, like music, is the best way to inhabit a poem and appreciate it.

The criteria in the selection has been that they electrify me (so no apologies for being subjective): the sound, imagery evokes an experience that draws me in, that 'makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up' or as Emily Dickinson said: 'If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.'

A day by day poem seemed a good way to introduce some favourites, both contemporary and past poets, also a sort of crash course in Eng. Lit. (poems written in the English language, not confined to the UK) with a few translations of major non-English language poets.

Of course, one or two poems do not sum up a poet. I hope this taster might encourage you to explore further.

The selection varies between contemporary living poets, (or recently deceased) and a jumping back and forth to poets in 'the canon' (a debatable term, I know), who seem to me, Must Know. No chronological ordering, and no logic, other than that the poem selected might be similar to, or in complete contrast in style or sensibility to the one preceding it. The selection is random, as they occur to me.

What is clear, is that many people I talk to tell me they loved poetry... once upon a time ...and can quote by heart many poems they were forced to learn (and are now happy that they were), before the dreaded teaching for passing exams started, and they were turned off poetry.

So I hope you will enjoy some, at least, of the poems on this blog. As my son said, it's a bit like having an Advent calendar window to open and a daily treat, but all year.

Welcome:

Monday 14 December 2015

Jan Wagner