Tag Archives: Poetry

Thought: June Fourth Elegies, by Liu Xiaobo (translated by Jeffrey Yang)

Posted on 23 August 2022 by Dove

More dissident poetry! It was a rough early June in 2017 when we lost Irina Ratushinskaya and Liu Xiaobo in quick succession. This one felt a little bit like the baddies won though, if I can use such simplistic/childish language. … Continue reading →

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Bookthoughts Roundup 2021!

Posted on 21 March 2022 by Dove

OK, so I spent most of last year not writing up the books I read. But I also didn’t do as much reading as usual, so I’m going to do a speedy roundup instead. Sorry! Or you’re welcome!

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Thoughts: Falling Awake, by Alice Oswald

Posted on 15 March 2022 by Dove

This was a slightly strange reading experience, devoured from beginning to end in a hospital waiting room before an appointment I was pretty nervous about, heavily pregnant, wearing a mask for three hours and hating it. So a moment very … Continue reading →

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Thoughts: Selected Poems, by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, translated by Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi

Posted on 17 January 2021 by Dove

From children’s fantasy to soviet poetry. Such is the world of literature. There’s a good translator introduction in this slim volume of poetry, which I appreciated but which also made me sad I can’t read Russian. It set out clearly … Continue reading →

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Speedy End of Year Book Roundup!

Posted on 2 January 2021 by Dove

I read a lot of books in quick succession at the end of the year, and frankly didn’t have the energy to review them properly because I was recovering from emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy (all fine* now) so … Continue reading →

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Thoughts: Jackself, by Jacob Polley

Posted on 15 August 2020 by Dove

I finished this book a little while ago, but honestly it’s been too hot to think about anything in an intelligent way until around now. And I can’t vouch much for now. It doesn’t help that this is a book … Continue reading →

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Thoughts: Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, by T. S. Eliot

Posted on 1 June 2020 by Dove

This isn’t going to be long or deep, but hey, I read it, so why not? After seeing the amazing Cats film over Christmas, we wandered into a secondhand bookshop in Manchester, where by serendipity was waiting for us a … Continue reading →

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Thoughts-ish: Tristan et Iseut, edited by Michel Zink

Posted on 22 April 2020 by Dove

I’m not going to write a scholarly essay on this, sorry and you’re welcome. This is just closure for me, and letting myself brag a bit, because this was a really difficult read and I got through it! (Musical accompaniment!)

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Thoughts: The Book of Longing, by Leonard Cohen

Posted on 1 February 2017 by Dove

And with this, poetry season is finally over. I find reading poetry as mentally tiring as reading in a foreign language, but I’m not sure if it’s just because I’m so comfortable reading English language prose that the difference jumps … Continue reading →

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Thoughts: Collected Poems by Lee Harwood

Posted on 29 January 2017 by Dove

A buzz from my phone woke me in the middle of the night and Guardian alerts nowadays are like little Gandalfs foretelling disaster, but it was the news that the US trying to deport people based on kneejerk racism has … Continue reading →

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