Nigeness

 Consciousness. I know I have it, but have no idea what it is or where it comes from (nor does anyone else, whatever they may say). I am equ...

This morning I took delivery of a new Panama hat, the old one having become an offence to the eye, and summer being in the offing. The new h...

 Here, for no particular reason, is a poem by Charles Stuart Calverley which perfectly demonstrates what Pope called the art of sinking in p...

 It's not only the poets who are getting older (spoiler alert: we all are). Last night, for some reason, I was looking up Michael Caine,...

 The poets are getting older: Kay Ryan is 80, Dana Gioia is 75, Dick Davis is 81, Billy Collins is 85 – and today Ted Kooser turns 87. He...

 I'm just back from yet another visit to Worthing (see Nigeness passim ). This time my reading on the train was Edith Wharton's The ...

 In the course of writing my butterfly book , I spent some time seeking out butterfly-themed poems (the best of them are Emily Dickinson...