Great Regulars: A poem can do whatever words can do,

but is driven more intensely than other verbal forms by a desire for interlocking patterns. It's a beautifully coherent brokenness, if you like, since line-breaks are at the heart of the structure. Whether a 16th-century sonnet, or an irregularly shaped 21st-century "list poem", the real thing is always uniquely itself and nothing other. Today, poetry in English is a poetry of truly magnificent diversity, but the different idioms often conceal shared aims.

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: What's your favourite poem?

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That a 17th-century woman writer should have dared give such personal and realist "turns" to the literary and spiritual conventions is impressive. Bradstreet had survived the difficulties of her colonial exile, and learned that poetry was nourished not only by books, but from painful lived experience.

[by Anne Bradstreet]

Childhood

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week: Childhood by Anne Bradstreet

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