What opportunities await
Tag: poems
cherished rendezvous
our new campaign
together
Chasm
A Poem I wrote in 2015 and was published on my previous Blog.
forever in our mind
Flow
a growing collection…
I’ve been thinking about doing this type of post for awhile now and I have been trying to keep busy in light of the recent sadness that has befallen our Family this week.
My love for Poetry dates back to my school years and I always enjoyed borrowing Poetry books from the Library but often thought it would be great if I had some on my own bookshelf. I know I can look up the Internet at any time and view some but I’m also a ‘real book’ lover and love to curl up with one. I love the feel, the smell and conciseness of a single book in the hands.
That being said, I also have a couple of Poetry apps on my phone, ‘Poem Hunter’, which provides a daily Poem; ‘Famous Poetry’, which offers the Poetry of 36 different Poets. The apps are for those times when I cannot or do not have a book with me.
I also have a few books on the mechanics of Poetry and how to write them and I thought I would share a list of my Poetry books with you.
- The Australian and Other Verses by W.H.Ogilvie
- Poetical Works of Henry Lawson
- Selected Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon
- The Collins Book of Australian Poetry
- Collected Verse – John Manifold
- The Poet’s Word – An Anthology of English Poetry
- Chaucer to Gray – The Harvard Classics
- The Golden Treasury of English Verse
- Morla el Do (Tomorrow Will Do) – A Collection of Norfolk Island Poems
- William Blake – Selected Poems
- Quatrains of Omar Khayyam
- The Poetical Works of John Keats
- Poetical Works of Mrs Browning Volume 1
- A Book of Poetry – Anthology of English Poetry (Textbook 1961)
- Collected Shorter Poems 1930 -1944 of W.H.Auden
- A.D.Hope – Selected Poems
- Selected Poems & Letters of Emily Dickinson
- Leaves From Australian Forests – Poetical Works of Henry Kendall
- Yet More Comic & Curious Verse – The Penguin Poets
- Enjoying Poetry 1 – Silver and Gold
- Matthew Arnold – A Selection Of His Finest Poems
- The English and Scottish Popular Ballads Volume 1
- Seven Centuries of Poetry in English
- The Great Modern Poets – An Anthology of the Best Poets & Poetry since 1900
- Collected Poems of Henry Thoreau
- James McCauley – Collected Poems 1936 – 1970
- The Golden Book of Modern English Poetry – Everyman’s Library – 921
- The Poet’s Pen – A Historical and Chronological Anthology – 13th to 20th Century
- Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass
- Judith Wright – Collected Poems
- Poems and Poets – David Aloian – Headmaster, Concord Academy (Textbook 1965)
- Country Verse – 16th to 19th Century
- Introduction to Poetry: British, American, Canadian
- Writing and Enjoying Haiku – A Hands-on Guide
- The Making of a Poem – A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms
- How To Read A Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry
- Poetry: Tools & Techniques – A Practical Guide to Writing Engaging Poetry
- Mary Oliver – A Poetry Handbook – A Prose Guide to Understanding & Writing Poetry
It would be very hard for me to pick out a favourite Poet or Poem so I’m not going to try. There are some of my favourite Poets missing from the list, though. Some are contained within the anthologies and it would be nice to have them in their own separate books. I know I can go out and purchase brand new books but I prefer to hunt out second-hand books as they have more character than a brand new book and there is something about ‘the hunt’ in a second-hand bookstore that makes it all the more exciting when you ‘uncover some book treasure…’.
Till next time!
Written by David Johnson
28 November 2021
Berkelouw’s book treasure
As mentioned in the previous post, last Sunday, my Wife and I were down at Berrima to celebrate the 27th anniversary of us going out to dinner for the first time.
One of the places we always go to is Berkelouw’s Book Barn which is located just outside Berrima on the Old Hume Highway. It holds a special place in our Hearts as we went there for the first time back on the 19 November 1994 and whilst browsing, Susan found a book called ‘The Drover’ which was outside the budget. She loved it but put it back on the shelf. I took a mental note of the book (no Smart phones back then to take a picture of it) and the next day, I rang Berkelouw’s and had them put the book aside. I picked it up the next weekend and gave it to Susan as a present. She was delighted and surprised! 🙂
Berkelouw’s used to have about 250,000 books but after diversification, they now have about 100,000 books. Still plenty to tantalise the avid bookworm.
Normally, we would be there for at least two hours, searching, uncovering and discovering book treasure but we both exceeded expectations and walked away with 11 books between us.
Here are my six below:
In all the years we have been going down there I have kept an eye out for writings of Henry David Thoreau and in consecutive years have picked up a book of his. Last year it was a book of his Poetry. It delights me to have picked up the book on some of his ‘meditations’.
I started reading the ‘Discworld’ series some time ago and have been keeping watch in second-hand bookstores so it was great to pick up another couple. 🙂
Am always on the lookout for Poetry books, especially anthologies and specific subject matter. I didn’t have any ‘humour-orientated’ Poetry so I was very pleased to add this to my collection. Anthologies are great, especially if like this one, there are a lot of Poets in it that I haven’t heard of. There a few Poems for each author so the book is a bit of a ‘taster’.
The final book to discuss is ‘New Worlds From Old’ which accompanied an exhibition of paintings some twenty years ago in Australia and the U.S.A. It has some wonderful plates of paintings from both American and Australian Landscape Artists from the 19th Century plus detailed information on the Artworks and the Artists themselves.
I’m looking forward this weekend and/or whenever I get the chance before to grab a cuppa and sit down to enjoy, particularly the Poetry, Painting and meditations books.
Till next time, booklovers!
Written by David Johnson
23 November 2021
My Writing Time
Communicating Creatively 