Sunday, August 26, 2007

Poetry and Kathleen Raine

There is a poem by Kathleen Raine called Spell of Creation in two of my books of poetry for children, which I have admired for several years, it speaks to me every time I read it. Today I decided to look for other poems by her, and found three on my shelves, my favourite being Envoi in The New Oxford Book of English Verse (the one edited by Helen Gardner). This is part of the second verse:

See how against the weight in the bone
The hawk hangs perfect in the air -
The blood pays dear to raise it there

And I found other poems on the internet at Old Poetry and PoemHunter, where I was particularly struck by Transit of the Gods and Change - here are 2 verses

Change
Says the moon to the waters,
All is flowing.
...
You must change said,
Said the worm to the bud,
Though not to a rose

I haven't read all the poems on the two internet sites yet. I also found a comment about her being in the poetic line of William Blake, which I can see. I didn't really like Blake when I was in my twenties except for the few famous poems like The Tyger that just about everybody likes, finding him a bit weird, but now I like his weirder poetry a lot.

Kathleen Raine 1908 - 2003

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