RDN’s poems.

Since 2013 I have been writing more poems. They are not terrifically "poetic" though they bend the rules of prose (orderly syntax, orderly progression of argument) sufficiently to be worth the descritpion, I hope. They are in pretty plain speech. They are intended to be read aloud and their punctuation aims at being a rough guide to that.

Poem: Denmark Villas, Hove

Hove, in west Sussex, feels to me like an incubator of the future. It's not just that its population is youthful but that so many of the young seem successful. I imagine them to be getting and spending in ways probably not known ten or twenty years ago. This is an springtime upbeat piece, about 1,000 words in all, and takes around ten minutes to read aloud. Read more...

Published

22 April 2022

Poem: A Wedding Poem

I wrote this because I wanted to express a central mystery in the wonderful business of a wedding. It aims to address the way marriage is a way of enshrining people's sense of compatability, which is such a necessary but brave part of a committed couple's life. Read more...

Published

09 September 2019

Poem: For Ken, 7 April 2019

I wrote this a few days after the death of Ken Uprichard (and have changed it slightly since). His family and mine have been friends for decades. He was latterly Head of Conservation at the British Museum but never seemed remotely grand to me - rather he was a countryman loving London. Read more...

Published

19 May 2019

Poem: Catching the light

Here, four moments from the 1980s and the 2010s provide the vignettes which I hope convey how an auto-didact skips and slithers, in a hungry sort of way, amongst the wit and wisdom of his betters. Read more...

Published

22 October 2017

Poem: Thoughts on a full stop

This isn't about me, at least not in particular, and it isn't gloomy, I hope. I fear it offers advice, which - it might be remembered - comes from a man with little courage and no pretensions to wisdom. Read more...

Published

15 November 2016

Poem: Beech Wood near Henley

My wife and I house-, chicken-, and dog-sit near Henley. This part of the Chilterns is far deeper countryside than I had ever expected. Read more...

Published

15 November 2016

Poem: Suicide Boy, 1872

I came across this news story from a local paper about a suicide-by-train  and wanted to mark it in some way. I feel oddly scrupulous about opining too much, or seeming to assume any understanding of the events it describes. Read more...

Published

15 November 2016
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