Great Regulars: [Andrew] Motion has perfected the art

of excavating his own poems from others' prose. For example, [Harry] Patch records in his memoir how, when asked by a schoolmaster to define a curve, he wrote that it was "a straight line with a bend in it", and took a rap over the knuckles for his wit. Motion borrows the idea, with equal wit, to introduce another Patch anecdote, about scrumping: "A curve is a straight line caught bending/and this one runs under the kitchen window/where the bright eyes of your mum and dad/might flash any minute and find you down/on all fours, stomach hard to the ground,/slinking along a furrow between the potatoes/and dead set on a prospect of rich pickings . . ."

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: From the ground up

~~~~~~~~~~~

But I also love going back in time, into the opening pages of anthologies, where the poems are still songs (and possibly dances) and no one dwells obsessively on the fact that the daffodils will be wasting away so soon. Since it's spring (cold, grey, sunless, but still spring) as I write, here are two poems for the price of one to brighten your post-Easter week: the 13th-century Cuckoo Song, "Sumer is icumen in", and the 19th-century "Rondeau" by Leigh Hunt. Compare and contrast, or, if that's too much chocolate, savour separately.

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poems of the week: spring songs

~~~~~~~~~~~