My next book of poems is coming soon

I have called it Poems from Poems, my own take on more than a hundred poems from diverse poets from Chaucer to Larkin. As I was writing during the first lockdown, I found that universal themes such as parting, loss and joyful reunion held a particular poignancy. The vulnerability of human life seemed to be felt intensely during this period and so aligned our modern age with the past, where death was witnessed much more frequently. At least I was spared the terror of damnation which featured so strongly in many of the metaphysical poets’ beliefs.
 
Similarly, while Arnold in the Victorian age lamented the ebbing tide of the Sea of Faith in his poem Dover Beach, I was more concerned with the threat of oceans literally flooding the land across the globe; Hardy’s valiant thrush defying the ominous outlook of a grim twentieth century, became for me an exemplum of threatened species of birds. Not all the poems were serious, however. For example, I had great fun using Betjeman’s memories to recall my own childhood loves and games.

The challenge I set myself was to use the same poetic form as the original, its metre and rhyme scheme. Use of form in previous times was almost a given, before the flourishing of free form in the twentieth century. The process taught me a great deal about how patterns complement or change meaning and atmosphere in poetry. I would encourage students of poetry to try this for themselves, as an exercise which enhances appreciation of the power of form.

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