W.H. Auden – John Allcock

Was that really what I enjoyed back then?

09/01/202517/02/2021 by John

I’ve had a curious experience over the past couple of days that has set me thinking about the ways in which our tastes change as we grow older. I like to vary my reading, alternating fiction and non-fiction, and also poetry. Having had a fairly solid slab of non-fiction recently, and no clear inclination to … Read more

Funeral blues

09/01/202528/01/2021 by John

Do you know that poem by W.H. Auden? “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone”…. I encountered it first at grammar school, and the occasion sticks in my memory chiefly because of the vigorous disagreement about it between my English teacher and myself. I suppose it’s not too late to acknowledge the fact that … Read more