The below poem, “Fine Rain”, is 1 of 12 poems by me which appears in “Croydon Poetry Hour Anthology 2019/2020”:
I get wet
By this fine
Rain.
Yet,
I do not regret
For the divine
Is in the rain.
I shall get wet
Again
For when
Death does steal
Me away.
I regret
That I shall no longer feel,
The joy of a rainy day.
(“Croydon Poetry Hour Anthology 2019/2020” can be found here, https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/croydon-poets/croydon-poetry-hour-anthology-201920/paperback/product-rjpqzd.html
Away from my technology
I see the reality
In these
Bare trees
And fallen leaves.
The autumn rain
Will fall again.
I walked alone
Through the graveyard.
Then, on reaching home
I pondered on lovers
And the dead.
The graveyard plot
Is cold,
Whilst love is hot.
Yet the dead
And lovers
Both have their bed,
Do they not?
A rhyme
Captures a moment in time
Of joy or pain,
Which will never come again.
The poet may change
His original rhyme
But past time
He can not change.
I think on those who obsess
Over what they label “progress”.
And, on hearing the wind sing
In the venerable old tree,
I laugh, for all must pass.
Former Foyle Young Poet Phoebe Stuckes has some useful advice on how to publish your poetry, https://ypn.poetrysociety.org.uk/features/how-to-publish-your-poetry-putting-together-the-first-book/.
The main focus of Phoebe’s advice pertains to being published by traditional means, as opposed to self publishing.
In contrast to the above, all of my books have been self published.
Earlier this year I wrote a guest article on how to produce a Selected Poems, which can be found here, https://thestoryreadingapeblog.com/2020/02/11/why-produce-a-selected-poems-guest-post-by-kevin-morris/
I have long been a fan of the poetry anthology. Indeed it was through such anthologies as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s “The Oxford Book of English Verse”, and Francis Turner Palgrave’s “Golden Treasury”, that I first began to explore poetry for myself. (I had already had a love of the art form implanted in me by my grandfather and my school teacher Mr Delacruz).
I own a number of poetry anthologies, including Helen Gardner’s “The New Oxford Book of English Verse” (which replaced Quiller-Couch’s “Oxford Book of English Verse), and ”The Penguin Book of English Verse”, edited by John Hayward”.
The joy of leafing through an anthology for me resides in the fact that it introduces the reader to new poets and reminds him/her of old favourites. If one likes the work of a particular poet, it is easy to purchase their individual works or find their poetry online. My copy of Gardner’s “The New Oxford Book of English Verse” is so well thumbed that the braille has become rather faint in places!
This post on the Interesting Literature website contains recommendations for 5 poetry anthologies, https://interestingliterature.com/2016/08/best-poetry-anthologies/.
I was interested to read in the above post, that an updated edition of “The Oxford Book of English Verse”, edited by Sir Christopher Ricks, is available. Where it to be available in braille, I would certainly buy a copy. Unfortunately it is not, so I shall console myself with Gardner’s excellent “New Oxford”.
(A number of my own poems appear in “Croydon Poetry Anthology 2019/2020”, which can be found here, https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/croydon-poets/croydon-poetry-hour-anthology-201920/paperback/product-rjpqzd.html).
Yesterday, I came across an article by Melik Kaylan entitled “For the Love of Poetry”, https://www.forbes.com/2009/04/06/memorize-poetry-education-opinions-columnists-thomas-hardy.html.
Kaylan offers a spirited defence of traditional (rhyming) poetry, and of the benefits flowing from memorising it.
I vividly recollect learning Alfred Noyes’s poem “The Highwayman as a child, and reciting it to an audience, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43187/the-highwayman. Noyes’s poem has a wonderful rhythm and I can still recall large chunks of “The Highwayman”.
I believe that being introduced to relatively simple (rhyming) poetry as a young boy kindled in me my love of the art. Had I been faced with free verse poetry at the same age, I am not sure that my love of poetry would have developed as it has.
There is (as I’ve said here before) much great free verse poetry. However my personal preference is for poetry that rhymes, or has some kind of meter to it. I also remain a traditionalist in that I agree with Kaylan as regards the benefits of memorising poetry.
As always, I would be interested in the views of my readers.
Kevin
The below extract is taken from “The Ballad of Lenin’s Tomb, a satirical and witty poem by Robert William Service:
“Where Lenin lies the red flag flies, and the rat-grey workers wait
To tread the gloom of Lenin’s Tomb, where the Comrade lies in state.
With lagging pace they scan his face, so weary yet so firm;
For years a score they’ve laboured sore to save him from the worm.
The Kremlin walls are grimly grey, but Lenin’s Tomb is red,
And pilgrims from the Sour Lands say: “He sleeps and is not dead. ”
To read the poem in it’s entirety please visit, https://mypoeticside.com/show-classic-poem-26448.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Service may have been just a tiny bit unwelcome in the former Soviet Union after having penned “The Ballad of Lenin’s Tomb”. But I can’t for the life of me imagine why that might be!
When older men
Dream of sinning
With young women,
Many a lass
Does contemptuously laugh.
But, if a man has money,
That self-same lass
May call him “my sweet honey”,
And smile while
The money lasts!
K Morris - Poet 