There are moments in life when you discover something new – an author, a recipe, a place, a person – and it feels as though you had carried them with you all along. I experience this every now and then with poets; I remember clearly discovering Brian Patten as a young teenager and wondering why every young person wasn’t just constantly reading poetry. His ballads and gentle eroticism appealed to the adolescent I was then.
These days poetry still has the same ability to take my breath away, or encourage with me with a turn of phrase that I feel speaks directly to the essence of something. Perhaps articulating something that simmers below the surface or acknowledging an aspect of myself that has felt misunderstood. Anyway, my newest best poet friend is F W Harvey. A resident of The Forest Of Dean, his poems have delighted me recently with sentiments that feel at once familiar and sage. I heartily recommend a visit. Perhaps his most famous poem, Ducks, is a good place to start. It begins:
“From troubles of the world
I turn to ducks,”
And who cannot want to read on, into the comical solace of ducks and dabbling?
https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/ducks/
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