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Tag Archives: England
“Look in thy heart and write.” — Sir Philip Sidney
“[The poet] doth grow in effect another nature, as the Heroes, Demigods, Cyclopes, Chimeras, Furies, and such like: so as he goeth hand in hand with nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely, ranging only … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, England, Harold Bloom, John Aubrey, Michael Schmidt, poetry, William Shakespeare
2 Comments
“Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.” — poet/engraver/visionary William Blake
“I mean, don’t you think it’s a little bit excessive?” “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. William Blake.” Pause. “William Blake?” “William Blake!” “William Blake???” “William Blake!!!” — Bull Durham William Blake was a poet virtually … Continue reading
Review: The Thing with Feathers (2025)
If you insist on making a film adaptation of a book where said book takes its entire thematic structure from Ted Hughes’ 1970 poetry collection Crow– and if in your adaptation you cut out all references to Ted Hughes – … Continue reading
“I was never afraid of failure, for I would sooner fail than not to be among the greatest.” –John Keats
I was just beautifying him, don’t you know. A thing of beauty, don’t you know. Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says. – James Joyce, Ulysses Born in 1795 on this day, John Keats was orphaned at fifteen. Because his … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day, writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Anne Spencer, Camille Paglia, Countee Cullen, Dorothy Parker, Elizabeth Bishop, England, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, John Keats, Katherine Mansfield, L.M. Montgomery, Lord Byron, Louis MacNeice, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Oscar Wilde, Percy Bysshe Shelley, poetry, Robert Burns, Robert Graves, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Seamus Heaney, Six Centuries of Great Poetry, T.S. Eliot, Ulysses, W.B. Yeats, William Carlos Williams, William Faulkner
19 Comments
“My thoughts bustle along like a Surinam toad, with little toads sprouting out of back, side, and belly, vegetating while it crawls.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
He looked at his own Soul with a telescope. What seemed all irregular, he saw and shewed to be beautiful Constellations: and he added to the Consciousness hidden worlds within worlds. –Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notebooks It’s his birthday today. I’ll … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Anne Fadiman, Ben Jonson, Camille Paglia, Charles Lamb, Derek Mahon, Edmund Spenser, Elizabeth Bishop, England, Jane Langton, John Donne, John Dryden, John Keats, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Lord Byron, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Stevie Smith, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Carlyle, William Hazlitt, William Wordsworth
29 Comments
Review: All of You (2025)
Brett Goldstein (whom I love) co-wrote and co-stars in All of You, and in my review I give shout outs to Delaney Rowe (if you don’t know, you need to know) and, Lord help me, Richard Bach.
“I rather like the idea of death.” — poet Stevie Smith
Born on this day in 1902, in Hull, Yorkshire England, Stevie Smith was christened Florence Margaret, but was called “Stevie” by her friends. (She was very petite and “Stevie” was the name of a famous jockey of the time.) Her … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged England, Michael Schmidt, Norton Anthology of Poetry, poetry, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Stevie Smith
3 Comments
“I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty… but I am too busy thinking about myself.” — poet Edith Sitwell
Born on this day. I don’t remember Sitwell being “read” in my poetry class in college, and I don’t remember her being covered in my English or Humanities classes in high school. She doesn’t seem to be one of the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Edith Sitwell, England, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Schmidt, poetry
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“The reason we’re successful, darling? My overall charisma, of course.” — Freddie Mercury
It’s his birthday today. It’s hard for me to talk about my feelings for Freddie Mercury. When Freddie Mercury moved, he cracked open the atmosphere. He’s almost frightening. When he walked across a stage, or threw his body into a … Continue reading
Review: The Thursday Murder Club (2025)
I enjoyed this English caper! Great cast. I reviewed for Ebert.