Yes, the latest issue of Shiny New Books, #12, is out today and you can read all its bookish loveliness here.
I have a couple of reviews this time, and I’ll point you today to my thoughts on Vicki Baum’s “Grand Hotel”, reissued in a beautiful edition from NYRB. I absolutely adored the book, with its wonderful cast of characters and brilliantly captured setting, and you can read my full review here.
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Today is also National Poetry Day in the UK, and so I took a few moments to read a poem this morning before leaving for work. Oddly enough, I’m actually in the middle of a Philip Larkin book at the moment, but it’s prose not poetry, so that doesn’t count. However, I keep stumbling across the work of Louis MacNeice, and I’m intrigued by what I’ve read so far. So I picked up a little Penguin volume of poetry from the 1930s and read this one today:
The Sunlight on the Garden
The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.
Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.
The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying
And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.
It’s an elegiac piece, written on the eve of the Second World War, and makes me very keen to read more of MacNeice’s work – so much so that I’ve requested his book with Auden, “Letters from Iceland”, from the library!
And finally a couple of pictures!
These are my Penguin Modern Poets – as you can see, by no means a full set as yet though I intend to get there eventually. Really must get onto the next one…
And these are a few others lurking on the shelves – of course there are many more on the other shelves plus individual poets like Plath. And I’ve just picked up a volume of Sitwell I want to start soon. Oh for more reading time….
Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings 
Oct 06, 2016 @ 09:51:08
I love that Louis McNeice poem! I first encountered it in the New Oxford Book of English Verse (ed. Helen Gardner), and it’s a firm favourite.
Oct 06, 2016 @ 11:16:00
It’s good, isn’t it?
Oct 06, 2016 @ 10:06:04
That is a wonderful poem, Karen, thanks for sharing it. I’m aware I don’t make enough time to read poetry, I always seem to be haring my way through novels trying to reduce a tbr pile that just keeps on growing. When I do slow down and roll a poem around for a while, I get so much from it.
Oct 06, 2016 @ 11:15:50
It *is* good, isn’t it? I’m definitely drawn to explore more of MacNeice’s work but like you I do tend to end up racing through novels!
Oct 06, 2016 @ 11:04:29
There are so many wonderful poems – including this one. When I’m feeling sad I go for poetry more than novels but it’s a hard choice – I’d like to read everything!
Oct 06, 2016 @ 11:15:10
Indeed – if only there was more time! 🙂
Oct 06, 2016 @ 12:36:12
I first read the Sunlight on the Garden poem in college and have gone back to it from time to time in the years since then. Some say it is a poem about the coming of war. That may be so, but for me now it is a poem expressing old age. We can no longer ask pardon for our mistakes from those who are gone now, the time to do and be is running out and we are dying ourselves, but life has been good — and we know it.
Oct 06, 2016 @ 14:58:36
That’s a lovely interpretation, and the joy of poetry, I think, that it can mean many different things to different people.
Oct 06, 2016 @ 17:44:43
Thank you for sharing that poem. I seem to forget about poetry sometimes.
Oct 06, 2016 @ 18:18:31
Me too – it’s all the fiction we’re racing to read that gets in the way!
Oct 06, 2016 @ 19:45:04
Oh I love Louis MacNeice! Lovely to see him mentioned.
Oct 06, 2016 @ 19:57:22
I’m definitely keen to read more of his work!
Oct 06, 2016 @ 22:37:25
Thank you – I love Louis MacNeice but I haven’t thought about him or read anything by him for such a long time.
Oct 07, 2016 @ 14:22:59
I’m impressed by his poems, and I really do need to read more!
Oct 07, 2016 @ 09:36:31
I spotted Henri, McGough, Patten in a charity shop and fortunately remembered you already had it! I have nothing in SNB this month as neither publisher sent the book to me that was requested, but I have two on their way to review next time!
Oct 07, 2016 @ 14:18:08
Yes, that’s one of the ones I *do* have! What a shame about the publishers – poo! – but hopefully the next lot will be good!
Oct 10, 2016 @ 16:16:57
I’ve got one already, about British people in Spain in history, if you see what I mean.
Oct 07, 2016 @ 09:58:52
What a wonderful poem. Like SilverSeason I think it is a poem about ageing and dying, and, like you, think that is the marvel of poetry – words working in a buy one get at least one other free – multi layers of meaning. And now I shall rush to shiny to read your Baum. With, I think Ali (or it might have been Shoshi or Jacqui) and you sounding the praise trumpet for it, I really must take the journey. With, anyway, 2 of my 4 booketteers championing it, needs must!
Oct 07, 2016 @ 14:17:32
I liked the MacNeice A LOT and so I’m definitely up for more. And yes – Grand Hotel is a fab read, go get that book! :))
Oct 07, 2016 @ 14:37:49
Tempter, thy name is Karen!
Oct 07, 2016 @ 14:44:48
I confess!!!!
Oct 07, 2016 @ 10:18:42
Well, I am definitely getting GRAND HOTEL now! Thanks Karen.
Oct 07, 2016 @ 14:16:57
It’s a goodie – hope you enjoy it!
Oct 07, 2016 @ 14:33:26
Definitely planning to – thanks Karen!
Oct 07, 2016 @ 15:43:32
What a lovely poem! I like the reference to Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. My favorite MacNeice poem is “Les Sylphides”. Have you read it? It beautifully captures the fleeting moments of love and the inevitable disillusionment that follows.
Oct 07, 2016 @ 19:08:32
It *is* striking, isn’t it? I’ve read little MacNeice (if any, before this) so I’ve plenty of exploring to do.
Oct 07, 2016 @ 17:25:57
I love Anne Sexton. I read a great biography about her by Diane Wood Middlebrook.
Oct 07, 2016 @ 19:08:02
I’ve loved what I’ve read by her and luckily I have a big fat volume of her collected poems!