Great Regulars: The letter in this poem represents

this period of panic "twenty-six years ago", a moment the poet has locked away in the bottom drawer of his subconscious and yet which, when revisited, is still real enough to erase the intervening years. One day, in an impossible future, he will deal with all these unanswered letters, these troubled and troubling memories, but in the meantime he accepts that the language out of which we build our lives isolates rather than connects, a mass of "endless text" out of which we can construct questions but which words alone cannot answer.

[by Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robin Fulton]

Answers to Letters

In the bottom drawer of my desk I come across a letter that

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Answers to Letters

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Talking of his own work in 1960 [James] Reeves explained why the historic events of his time, which commonly featured in the work of his peers, did not figure in his own poems: "To me poetry is rooted in the particular and the immediate". In "Discharged from Hospital", economy of language and the unsentimental listing of professions to describe the hospital workers creates a fast-paced yet stirring scene. Anyone who has had a prolonged stay in hospital will appreciate Reeves's lucid and droll metaphors, in particular "the rabelaisian sister with the bedpan" and "the dawn chorus of cleaners".

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Discharged from Hospital

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In a time of austerity measures, riots and record unemployment, "Up There" remains relevant. It is tempting to read the poem as a political indictment of the wealthiest members of society, untouched by economic downturns, but to do so would miss [Peter] Bland's point: by the final stanza, we feel sympathy for these tycoons, paralyzed by privilege. Robert Frost once said "Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance", and if there is grievance in Bland's poem it lies with the playboy-turned-king who, "with two broken legs", inherits his own "golden wheelchair". Taking the place of his forebears, he can only preside over the "noise and dust" of the rest of us, who walk freely beneath him.

Up There

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: Up There

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