Bernard O’Donoghue teaches medieval English at Wadham College, Oxford. His latest book of poems is Outliving.
Past the odour-of-sanctity primroses in their tight nests of wrinkle-green by the well, and the violets, hardly daring to breathe, on the ditch above them. On to the wet fields and the wiry filigree below the girl’s-dress mauve elegance of this flower, rooted amid rush-spires, just come out at the start of a new season.
Farmers CrossMy mother took to farming like a...
It must feel odd – and more than a bit unsettling – to realise that sooner or later, perhaps in your lifetime, somebody will write your biography. Biographers can get lives badly...
The survival of poetry, especially if written before the invention of print, has often been a matter of luck or accident. Consigned to caves in the deserts of the Middle East, it might be...
Read anywhere with the London Review of Books app, available now from the App Store for Apple devices, Google Play for Android devices and Amazon for your Kindle Fire.
For highlights from the latest issue, our archive and the blog, as well as news, events and exclusive promotions.