Walking along some fellside path in the Lake District, grey skies and a gentle drizzle, suddenly I am able to fly upwards. Hovering high above the hills, fields and waters, I can see the lattice-work of tracks, paths and roads that intersect across the land. With this map-like view of the terrain I view acrossRead More
So long as that woman from the Rijksmuseum in painted quiet and concentration keeps pouring milk day after day from the pitcher to the bowl the World hasn’t earned the world’s end. ‘Vermeer’ Poetry is everywhere. It is in the view framed by my window. It is in the cup from which I have justRead More
So much of the past is now unreadable. Not just in a metaphysical sense, but quite literally so. Volume upon volume of the stuff that you cannot imagine anyone having had the stamina or the interest to attempt at the time. I pick up some works of the Victorian era and pity the typesetters. TimeRead More
For my talent is to give an impression upon words by punching, that when the reader casts his eye upon ’em, he takes up the image from the mould which I have made. Christopher Smart One of my favourite Kent walks is through the Fairlawne estate; those parts of it that are public, that is.Read More
A sturdy walking distance from here is Higham, a village midway on the main road from Rochester to Gravesend, with commanding views over the Medway valley and Thames Estuary. Here it was that Charles Dickens in his prosperous later years purchased a house that he had dreamed of living in when a child. His fatherRead More
To the Royal Academy on a Friday evening, joining those neglectful souls rushing to see the Bill Viola / Michelangelo exhibition before it closes (on March 31st). It was very impressive – it could hardly have been otherwise. The exhibition brings together the work of video artist (for want of a better term) Bill Viola,Read More
You led me into the trackless woods, My falling stars, my dark endeavour. Anna Akhmatova, from ‘To My Poems’ (translated by Lyn Coffin) What joy there is in coming across the great work of art that you had not been expecting. The writer new to you whose words say exactly what you had been, unknowingly,Read More
In my ignorance, I had thought that the tomb of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘An Arundel Tomb’ was in Arundel. One day I shall be in Arundel, I thought, then I shall pop into whatever church it is and see it. So it came as a bit of surprise to be wandering through Chichester cathedral, forRead More
In the heart of the City of London, at the corner of Poultry and Queen Victoria Street, stands a striking modernist pink stone building. No. 1 Poultry Street is the youngest listed building in the country (it was granted grade II* status in 2016), but the site it occupies has a long history. Tucked aroundRead More
Back in 1981 one of my favourite haunts was the Albion Bookshop in Mercery Lane, Canterbury. Squeezed into its medieval plot over two floors, tightly-packed books climbed up the shelves to ceiling height, while central islands created alleyways through which I could venture through all – so it seemed – that the world of lettersRead More