Poetry matters

I've never been an avid poetry reader, but my eye has been caught recently by two poetry related matters.

On Saturday the Weekend Australian published a story about Les Murray, who has just published The Biplane Houses, his latest collection. The print version featured a couple of poems which the online version omitted.

Also of interest to me at the moment, not least because it actually publishes poetry online, is the Poem-a day celebration sponsored by the US publishing house Alfred A Knopf which runs throughout April. If you sign up you receive a daily email with a poem.

You can read them all here. For what it's worth here is my personal selection of three of the first ten: Jane Mayhall's "Never Apologize, Never Explain" , Philip Levine's "today and Two Thousand Years from Now" and Lucie Brock-Broido's "After the Grand Perhaps".

Ms Mayhall should be an inspiration to everyone of mature years. The notes on the website explain :

Jane Mayhall is a poet of a now bygone bohemian New York. She wrote much of her first full-length collection, SLEEPING LATE ON JUDGMENT DAY, after she had already turned eighty. Throughout the work, we find insights into a life well-lived, especially in today's poem, "Never Apologize, Never Explain."