I have said before, and will keep on saying until my strength gives out, that there is nothing more important in society than teaching the growing generations to express themselves in good, clear, concise, forceful English.
The title I gave to my fourth collection of poems is Between Silence and Silence.
Good poetry holds its truth and relevance throughout the ages. It may retail the facts and thinking of its own era, but part of it will always express what is eternally true and recognizable.
The world is terror-stricken. A condition of advanced paranoia is spreading everywhere.
At thirteen, I think it was, I was reading love poetry.
My tutor at Cambridge, Professor Nick Hammond, authority on the history of ancient Macedonia and on the life of Alexander the Great, used to coach me on what he called “exercises of the mind.”
This is an easy column to write. A previous column I wrote about the great Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz, drew a lovely response from readers who told me by notes, emails, even phone calls, overseas and at home, that they enjoyed this poet very much.
“You gave me gifts, God-Enchanter. I give you thanks for good and ill.
“We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our schoolmasters, and one from the world.
When I was a schoolboy we had a games-master named Mr.
Of all the expressions of unconsolable loss I have read concerning the death of anyone greatly loved, the following lament by Henry James, the novelist, when his older brother, William James, the scientist and philosopher, died is the most heartfelt: “I sit heavily stricken and in darkness – for from far aback in dimmest childhood he had been my Elder Brother; and I still, through all the years, saw in him, even as a small timorous boy yet, my protector, my backer, my authority and my pride.
Suddenly I am 85 years old. I find that ridiculous but chronologically it is a fact.
In last week’s column I wrote about a pervasive anxiety about the state of things in general which currently focuses on the seemingly unstoppable spread of criminal activity and violent crime in society.
The word angst derives from the German meaning fear, but signifying something a lot more than simple fear.
Thomas Friedman, NY Times columnist, wrote in an interesting recent article that the world is faced with three immense “climate” changes.
The global poverty rate has been cut in half in about the last 20 years, so why not try our best to eliminate poverty in the next 20?
I love poetry. It is the quiet passion of my life.
The golden shower orchids in my wife’s garden are particularly lovely just now.
I am not at all sure how many readers understand my love of poetry, and I have a distinct feeling that the great majority are puzzled, if not bored, by my inclination to illustrate many of these columns with poems I like.
I cannot think why, but politicians take themselves very seriously indeed.
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