The Truth of Imagination
Posts tagged writing
On my blog over at No wriggling out of writing, I look at a recent paper that suggests John Keats’ inspiration for his great Ode ‘To Autumn’ may not have been the Winchester water meadows as previously thought. However, the spot is not a million miles away, and the Winchester tourist board need not worry too much….
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Am I proper writer now? I have a website!!
I have now got an official website which brings together information on everything I try and do with my life - including all my writing (including my two books) and research services and links to my blogs. Still grateful for any comments on its appearance - I did it all on my lonesome and am really quite proud of it…. :-)
On my blog - a John Keats poem that speaks to all of us as we go into a new year with ambitions we long to realise but lack the confidence to pursue.
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On our return from this circuit, we ordered dinner, and set forth about a mile and a half on the Penrith road, to see the Druid temple. We had a fag up hill, rather too near dinner-time, which was rendered void by the gratification of seeing those aged stones on a gentle rise in the midst of the Mountains, which at that time darkened all around, except at the fresh opening of the Vale of St. John.
John Keats 1818. Walking in the Lake District with Charles Brown and visiting the Castlerigg Stone Circle.
Photo crediy: Żaneta Miderska
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A Story for Halloween - The Marrow Spoon
Inspired by the master of all things spooky, M.R.James, I have written a short story entitled The Marrow Spoon and put it out on my blog.
It is my first attempt at a little piece of Gothic so please feel free to comment (constructively - I am most awfully thin-skinned…) as I would be enormously grateful…
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On my blog ‘No Wriggling Out of Writing’ I look at a letter Keats wrote to his brother & sister in law over a period of ten days in September 1819. He deals with the feeling all writers dread - that listlessness and inability to put pen to paper that thwarts the imagination and results in endless procrastination. He also comments on the effect of love on a man and does rather protest too much for someone already deeply in love with one Fanny Brawne.
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William Blake 1757-1827. Portrait (1807) by Thomas Phillips
Another beautiful poem about autumn, this time written by Blake, as the leaves here turn and for once the breeze is gentle and feathery clouds move slowly across blue skies.
To Autumn
O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain’d
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may’st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.
“The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.
“The spirits of the air live in the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.”
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,
Then rose, girded himself, and o’er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.
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