Edmund Prestwich
@edmundprestwich.bsky.social
Retired teacher, grandfather, reader, writer of poetry and poetry reviews.
Brief reflections on Michelene Wandor's Ergo from Arc Publications, as in issue 71 of The North: edmundprestwich.co.uk?p=2896
September 24, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Brief reflections on Michelene Wandor's Ergo from Arc Publications, as in issue 71 of The North: edmundprestwich.co.uk?p=2896
Tomas Transtromer's 'Romanesque Arches' - profoundly moving in Robin Fulton's translation for Transtromer's New Collected Poems by @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social. Read it aloud - in Fulton's words each phrase becomes a vividly charged moment in an arc of evolving experience.
September 24, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Tomas Transtromer's 'Romanesque Arches' - profoundly moving in Robin Fulton's translation for Transtromer's New Collected Poems by @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social. Read it aloud - in Fulton's words each phrase becomes a vividly charged moment in an arc of evolving experience.
And the glass houses in the Botanic Garden are enchanting even on our casual viewing.
September 4, 2025 at 11:07 AM
And the glass houses in the Botanic Garden are enchanting even on our casual viewing.
College lawns were very dry on this year's visit to Oxford but the flower beds in Balliol were particularly lovely in the subtlety of their colour combinations.
September 4, 2025 at 10:56 AM
College lawns were very dry on this year's visit to Oxford but the flower beds in Balliol were particularly lovely in the subtlety of their colour combinations.
My brief review of Imtiaz Dharker's beautiful Shadow Reader in The North 71: edmundprestwich.co.uk?p=2890
August 30, 2025 at 3:41 PM
My brief review of Imtiaz Dharker's beautiful Shadow Reader in The North 71: edmundprestwich.co.uk?p=2890
Llandudno mornings
August 21, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Llandudno mornings
Walking on the Great Orme
August 21, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Walking on the Great Orme
I particularly loved 'Afterwardness' - the last poem she reads - when I reviewed the fine volume it comes in. Read it on the page, if you can, as well as hearing it here - it's so poignantly haunting on the page because it's a palimpsest of feelings and ideas tugging against each other.
May 30, 2025 at 4:09 PM
I particularly loved 'Afterwardness' - the last poem she reads - when I reviewed the fine volume it comes in. Read it on the page, if you can, as well as hearing it here - it's so poignantly haunting on the page because it's a palimpsest of feelings and ideas tugging against each other.
My thoughts on two new Dante books from the Princeton University Press: edmundprestwich.co.uk?p=2871 with thanks to David Cooke and The High Window.
May 17, 2025 at 2:09 PM
My thoughts on two new Dante books from the Princeton University Press: edmundprestwich.co.uk?p=2871 with thanks to David Cooke and The High Window.
the deceptively light touch of this poem, its brilliantly weighed departures from standard sonnet metrical and rhyme forms, the smoothness of its line endings,create an extraordinary sense of overhearing the poet thinking aloud about the wonder of the night just passed.
May 9, 2025 at 3:19 PM
the deceptively light touch of this poem, its brilliantly weighed departures from standard sonnet metrical and rhyme forms, the smoothness of its line endings,create an extraordinary sense of overhearing the poet thinking aloud about the wonder of the night just passed.
Just as I reread Amelie Nothomb’s Japanese-see Stupeurs et tremblements and Ni d’Eve ni d’Adam cherry blossom comes to the park.
April 14, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Just as I reread Amelie Nothomb’s Japanese-see Stupeurs et tremblements and Ni d’Eve ni d’Adam cherry blossom comes to the park.
Spring glories force me to get my phone out although I'm no photographer!
April 1, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Spring glories force me to get my phone out although I'm no photographer!
Snapshots in the park
March 24, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Snapshots in the park
More quiet magic from Michael Longley
January 25, 2025 at 11:30 AM
More quiet magic from Michael Longley
Love this one. The way its unfolding is slowed by unusual syntax that seems to hang its phrases in a kind of watery suspension heightens the poignancy of the way its celebration of imaginative power is fused with acceptant recognition of physical weakness. One of so many quiet wonders.
January 24, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Love this one. The way its unfolding is slowed by unusual syntax that seems to hang its phrases in a kind of watery suspension heightens the poignancy of the way its celebration of imaginative power is fused with acceptant recognition of physical weakness. One of so many quiet wonders.
My London Grip review of David Constantine's enchanting A Bird Called Elaeus: edmundprestwich.co.uk?p=2831
January 7, 2025 at 3:36 PM
My London Grip review of David Constantine's enchanting A Bird Called Elaeus: edmundprestwich.co.uk?p=2831
From David Constantine’s A Bird called Elaeus, his version of a poem by Anyte of Tegea is a little miracle of pacing and metre that you can repeat aloud endlessly with its ideas coming into slightly different focus every time. Lovely and inexhaustible.
January 7, 2025 at 10:25 AM
From David Constantine’s A Bird called Elaeus, his version of a poem by Anyte of Tegea is a little miracle of pacing and metre that you can repeat aloud endlessly with its ideas coming into slightly different focus every time. Lovely and inexhaustible.
Following a great Christmas day with reimmersion in the enchantment of David Constantine's A Bird Called Elaeus - in a broad view so evocative of its vanished worlds, in a narrow one so crammed with magically evocative lines and phrases.
December 26, 2024 at 3:09 PM
Following a great Christmas day with reimmersion in the enchantment of David Constantine's A Bird Called Elaeus - in a broad view so evocative of its vanished worlds, in a narrow one so crammed with magically evocative lines and phrases.
My review of Sarah Holland-Batt's spellbinding The Jaguar for The High Window: edmundprestwich.co.uk?p=2819
November 28, 2024 at 9:32 AM
My review of Sarah Holland-Batt's spellbinding The Jaguar for The High Window: edmundprestwich.co.uk?p=2819
Another winter stunner from Nashe. Presumably sung in stage production but each of those stark unstopped lines delivers a devastating punch as speech:
November 23, 2024 at 4:31 PM
Another winter stunner from Nashe. Presumably sung in stage production but each of those stark unstopped lines delivers a devastating punch as speech:
Lots of seasonal beauties to see but the cold virtually forces me to post this little stunner by Nashe (no dodging winter’s cruelty for the Elizabethan poor)
November 22, 2024 at 5:29 PM
Lots of seasonal beauties to see but the cold virtually forces me to post this little stunner by Nashe (no dodging winter’s cruelty for the Elizabethan poor)
Roger Lancelyn Green accompanied Hadfield. From there I moved on tho my father’s Le Morte Darthur by Jonathan Cape & the Medici Society with Russell Flint’s much less dynamic illustrations.
How did I wade through all that archaic gore!
How did I wade through all that archaic gore!
November 20, 2024 at 10:33 AM
Roger Lancelyn Green accompanied Hadfield. From there I moved on tho my father’s Le Morte Darthur by Jonathan Cape & the Medici Society with Russell Flint’s much less dynamic illustrations.
How did I wade through all that archaic gore!
How did I wade through all that archaic gore!