Poets and Poems: Sam Willetts and “New Light for Old Dark”

Thirty years ago, we went to London for our tenth wedding anniversary. In addition to all the sights, I did manage to make it to Foyle’s Bookstore on Charing Cross Road (although I don’t recall buying anything) and to the book department at Harrod’s (I do remember buying a volume of John Mortimer’s Rumpole of the Bailey.

Last month, we spent two weeks in London – our 40^th wedding anniversary. And I did manage to find a few books. Well, perhaps more than a few.

This time, I was looking for poets – British poets. And I found them, at the British Library shop (and it’s a great shop), at Harrod’s book department (which looked different fromw hat I remembered), and at Blackwell’s on Charing Cross Road. London is a big city, and it can still support bookstores, at least on Charing Cross, where you can find Blackwell’s and Foyle’s as well as numerous used bookstores.

I bought poetry collections by two poets I was familiar with – Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes – and several I wasn’t familiar with. One of those was Sam Willetts, and the volume I bought (at Harrod’s) was New Light for the Old Dark.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.