Rhapsody for Lessons Learned or Remembered – G. Banks-Martin
July 26th, 2011 by

I’ll admit it. I’m a bit of a poetry snob. That isn’t to say that I will only read the likes of Dickinson, Shakespeare and Rossetti of course. Indeed, I even dared to venture that Seamus Heaney’s ‘North’ wasn’t a patch on his earlier... more

Posted in Poetry, Reviews

Carol Ann Duffy – The World’s Wife
April 19th, 2011 by

The World's Wife To some she’s a feminist hero, but to others, she’s the reincarnated version of a famous German dictator (minus the moustache). You could almost forget she was a poet if, like me, you didn’t study her at school. When someone... more

Posted in Poetry, Reviews

Seamus Heaney – North
April 16th, 2010 by

After having read Heaney’s translated version of 'Beowulf', my expectations of this poetry collection were rather high. Indeed, the fact that I had to pay £9.99 for less than 70 pages also gave me the notion that some very high-quality work was... more

Posted in Poetry, Reviews

Geoffrey Chaucer – Wife of Bath
November 25th, 2009 by

Genre: Comedy / Loathly Lady Motif Plot Outline: This is a story narrated by one of the Pilgrims from Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’. The story itself comes after a long prologue by the narrator, in which she describes her various husbands and... more

Posted in Books, Poetry, Reviews

Geoffrey Chaucer – A Knight’s Tale
November 6th, 2009 by

Genre: Epic / Romance Plot Outline: Two Knights, Arcite and Palamon, are captured by Duke Theseus of Athens. Whilst in prison, Palamon looks out of the window to see Emily in the garden below him and falls instantly in love. His moan of love is... more

Posted in Books, Poetry, Reviews