John Keats greatly admired Wordsworth’s poetry and called it ‘poetry of the heart’. These 33 Duddon Sonnets reveal Wordsworth’s heart for this insignificant, forgotten river. It was one of his favourites since his youth.
Continue reading “Wordsworth’s Poetry of the Heart- the Duddon Sonnets”
The wonder and mystery of woods has always fascinated us. They are the stuff of fairy stories, legends and much of our English literature. Those that are left, like the New Forest (above), are ‘the guardians of our dreams of greenwood liberty of our wildwood, feral, childhood selves’. (Roger Deakins)
Continue reading “An Elegy for our Lost Woods”
A few years ago, during the BBC TV programme, ‘The Monastery’, based on Worth Abbey in Sussex, one of the monks was showing a group of school children around. Standing with them in the quiet chapel he stilled the children’s chatter: ‘Shush ! Can you hear that?’ he said. There was not a sound to be heard yet he continued: ‘Do you know what that is ? It’s called ‘silence’! He went on to explain to his young visitors what discoveries can be made when we open ourselves to the wonderful world of silence, with all its possibilities.
A Listening Heart 