Poetic Asides: Norman Nicholson and Frank Stanford

One of the things I’ve learned from writing here at Tweetspeak Poetry is that, when it comes to poetry, the articles you write have a way of continuing to live. They may be reposted or republished on other sites, and they can lead you to continue reading more work by the poets you write about. Consider the poets Norman Nicholson and Frank Stanford.

I was reading A Poet’s Guide to Britain by Owen Sheers, which I wrote about in July. It was there I discovered (1914-1987) and his beautiful poem “Scafell Pike.” I did some digging and was able to find several of his poetry collections through used book dealers (mostly in the UK). And then I wrote in August about how he wrote about the landscape and environment of northern England, the Lake country, and the northwest English coast.

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

Photograph: Norman Nicholson.

Norman Nicholson: Poetry of Landscape and the Environment

A few weeks back, as I was reading A Poet’s Guide to Britain, I discovered a poem by Norman Nicholson (1914-1987) called “Scafell Pike”. It is a landscape poem, but an unusual one, as it explores an industrial landscape imposed upon a natural landscape, but the industrial landscape is becoming a ruin and being reclaimed by nature.

In a sense, the poem is also a story poem, the story of the great industrialization of Britain in the 19^th century and the deindustrialization of Britain in the 20^th. Nicholson’s landscape was very specific – the region of Cumbria on the western side of England’s Lake District and butting up against the Irish Sea.

I looked for more poems by Nicholson, and found them. I looked for biographical information online, and found it. Then I went looking to see if I could find any of his poetry collections online, and I could. But few had been republished; generally, what’s available are used editions at various book shops in the UK. (some priced reasonably and some not).

One resource I did find was a biography written in 2013, Norman Nicholson: The Whispering Poet by Kathleen Jones. It was written at the request of the Norman Nicholson Society, and it’s available in Kindle format. It’s highly readable and covers Nicholson’s life and his works in detail.

To continue reading (and to read one of his beautiful poems), please see my post today at TweetspeakPoetry.

British Poetry, British Poets, and Brexit

I thought the United States had the hammerlock on extreme political language until the Brexit referendum was decided in Great Britain. Then I discovered we were amateurs when it came to the normally understated British. I had British friends on both sides of the decision for Britain to leave the European Union. The anguish was painful to see, mirrored, perhaps, by the anguish we face this election year in the U.S.

So I turned to British poetry. The British take their poetry much more seriously than Americans do. I happened to visit last year during National Poetry Day, and the entire country seemed to reading poetry, going to readings, and holding poetry book fairs. And British newspapers still print poetry, review it, discuss it, and debate it. And it lasted longer than a single day – it was more like National Poetry Week.

Can you imagine a major network, like NBC or Fox, hold a national vote on America’s favorite poets?  In 2014, the BBC did, and with plenty of rules and guidelines. Some 18,000 votes were cast, and first place went to Anglo-American T.S. Eliot. John Donne was in second place; Benjamin Zephaniah was third. Rounding out the Top 10 were Wilfred Owen, Philip Larkin, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, John Betjeman, John Keats, and Dylan Thomas.

Yes, the British take their poetry seriously.

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

Photograph by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.