I thought it would be fun to do a poetry version of Desert Island Discs, so here it goes!If I could only take with me eight poems (remember, everyone gets The Complete Works of William Shakespeare as a freebie), they would be:

Preacher, Don’t Send Me by Maya Angelou

Preacher is a beautiful reminder to only yearn for the things that make us truly happy. The narrator is not interested in promises of eternal wealth for they have seen the worst that the material world has to offer:

I’ve known those rats
I’ve seen them kill
and grits I’ve had
would make a hill

and, throughout material poverty, experienced happiness from a higher plane:

I’d call a place
pure paradise
where families are loyal
and strangers are nice
where the music is jazz
and the season is fall.

I love this poem anyway, but it would also make a great companion on a desert island. It would be very easy to reminisce and pine for everything you no longer have. A little perspective on the things that you should miss would be very valuable.

I stopped all milk
at four years old
and once I’m dead
I won’t need gold.

Recruit Centre by John Bayliss

Since first reading Flight to Arras by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry I have had a piqued interest in the crossover of aviation and literature. Something about being able to see the world from above and traversing air provides an atmosphere that is at once philosophical, abstract and fantastic, yet has been achieved by human endeavour using things of the earth. The sky is a midpoint between the gutter and the stars; halfway between humanity and God. It is a little closer to eternity.

Recruit Centre is written by John Bayliss who was an RAF pilot officer during the Second World War. I think that Bayliss has a great control of metre. He is able to create melody from a dire subject.

let me to-night take this, my mirror,
look into it, rub out the staring face,
taking instead your own, set where stars are
with swans riding the moon’s race:

The metaphysics are restrained because the poem is set on the ground. The romantic recruit struggles to dream – perhaps this is why they have enlisted in the Air Force, for the chance to dream again?

but I see the ship’s lantern red in their wake
and know the spell altered, my magic too weak.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson

‘Hope’ is a special word to me and to take a poem with me that is all about it, written by such a wonderfully lyrical poet, is a must.

Dickinson is unfairly branded as ‘childlike’ and ‘simplistic’ in many of her poems but I personally think that this is lazy and sexist criticism. This is my favourite Dickinson poem and it probably takes the brunt of this criticism.

The subject of hope, if treated sincerely, cannot be simplistic. It is a mystery for metaphysicians and psychologists to explain why we harbour hope at all. I agree with Schopenhauer that suffering (and, in turn, hope) is the fundamental motivator for us all. Without hope I am empty, with it I am full.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all

And sweetest in the Gale is heard
And sore must be the storm —
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm —

I've heard it in the chillest land —
And on the strangest Sea —
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb — of Me.

Child by Sylvia Plath

The imagery and mystique of Plath’s poetry is mesmerising. She employs such a rich language that every poem has an immense emotional charge. Child is my favourite Plath poem since becoming a parent. It succinctly encapsulates the bond of two different worlds, the child and the adult, and our duty to marvel at and protect the wonderful purity of one against the mess of the other.

Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new

Whose names you meditate –
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little

Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical

Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.

Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

I thought I would need something a little longer to keep myself occupied. Eugene Onegin is a work of genius. It is human yet romantic, psychological but not introverted. It’s moralistic but not didactic. It’s bright and colourful; it has a melodic air which does not undermine its serious undertones or natural tone. And to cap it all, it is written in verse: 389 stanzas in a sonnet form of Pushkin’s own innovation. If there was ever a work of art I wish I had written myself, this is it. Here is the end of Eugene’s condescending rejection of Tatyana:

‘His days and dreams what man recovers?
Never shall I my soul renew…
I feel, if not indeed a lover’s,
More than a brother’s love for you.
Be patient, then as with a brother:
One cherished fancy for another
A girl will more than once forego,
As every spring the saplings show
New leaves for those the tempests scatter.
So Heaven wills it. Your young soul
Will love again. But self-control,
My dear, is an important matter:
Though I was worthy your belief,
Impulsiveness may lead to grief.’

I have always been a lover of Russian literature so Eugene Onegin also doubles up as a representative for a lot of my favourite books left behind. It’s also a work you can (and I have) repeatedly gone back to. Its appeal and value to me is limitless.

Planetarium by Adrienne Rich

There is a lot to appreciate in this feminist poem and, although it isn’t directly applicable to me, it is a reminder of the importance of self and the tension between the individual and the world in deciphering just what that amounts to. It’s a poem that will be valuable on a desert island in particular because the isolation will make it easy to forget we are complex and open beings. We are a multitude of influences as well as biological fact, yet we are unique. A castaway’s perception of self is liable to become warped. Also, I love the changing structure and tone of this poem, with its use of quotes, astronomical imagery and directly confessional ending. Adrienne Rich is yet another poet whose command of the page and confidence in style I admire.

A woman in the shape of a monster
a monster in the shape of a woman
the skies are full of them

a woman   ‘in the snow
among the Clocks and instruments
or measuring the ground with poles’

in her 98 years to discover
8 comets

she whom the moon ruled
like us
levitating into the night sky
riding the polished lenses

Galaxies of women, there
doing penance for impetuousness
ribs chilled
in those spaces   of the mind

Mutability by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Strangely, the poems I have chosen aren’t necessarily from my favourite poets. This one, however, most certainly is. There’s much I admire about Shelley, mainly his artistic integrity and drive that couples with the most beautiful style and voice. Mutability is all about those fleeting moments that make life worth living and just how suddenly and unexpectedly they can come and go.

The flower that smiles to-day
   To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
   Tempts and then flies.
What is this world’s delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
   Brief even as bright.

Virtue, how frail it is!
   Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
   For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
   Which ours we call.

Whilst skies are blue and bright,
   Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
   Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou – and from thy sleep
   Then wake to weep.

This “brief even as bright” piece of Shelley would serve as great inspiration for the endless hours.

I have longed to move away by Dylan Thomas

The title of this poem may make it seem an odd choice to accompany forced solitude but it echoes something quite true about my spirit. The poem speaks to me deeply and on a desert island you need to keep an accurate image of yourself to retain a semblance of sanity.

I’m a fan of Thomas’ early work. Some of my own poems have similarities; a fact I only discovered after reading them in public and being told us much. Although I’ve been writing poetry since I was fourteen, I only really started reading poetry more widely when I became a member of Fire River Poets in 2015. From the very first meeting I became acutely aware of my ignorance and thought it best to read beyond the nineteenth century for a change. It’s just one of the many things I am forever thankful to the group for.

I have longed to move away
From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terrors’ continual cry
Growing more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea;
I have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
For there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper
And the thunder of calls and notes.

If I could take with me one piece of music it would be: Symphony No.3 in C minor, Op. 78 by Camille Saint-Saëns

A bit like the work of Dylan Thomas, the music of Saint-Saëns is something I’ve arrived at in a rather backwards way. The only pieces I had ever heard (thanks to popular culture) were the main refrain from Danse macabre (used as the theme tune for TV show Jonathan Creek) and the ‘Aquarium’ movement from Carnival of the Animals (from multiple uses I’m sure, though I couldn’t name a single one). In my mind, I had never attributed a composer to either of these. Then, in 2009, I spent a week in Montparnasse and spent one afternoon wandering its cemetery. Armed with a map showing the locations of the most famous internments, Saint-Saëns name caught my eye and I decided to take a look. What awaited me was a fairly substantial and well adorned crypt, far more grandiose than I was expecting. Seeing the respect and affection still shown by the populace in this display, I determined to get to know him and his work.

This anecdote goes to show how inquisitiveness can take us along a path to new treasures. We have to not only be open to receive new ideas; we must be determined to find them too. I’m reminded of this every time I hear this marvellous symphony.

And finally, my luxury item would be:

Hopefully the island itself would be kind enough to provide (and I would be resourceful enough to take advantage of!) some things that would negate the need for the obvious choices, like some cave walls to scratch on or some big sticks to sharpen and fish with (yes, plenty of tasty and easy to spear fish swimming on a shallow shore, of course! ). I’m tempted to say my saxophone because a desert island would be the ultimate jazz environment. I’m also tempted by my golf clubs as designing and maintaining a course would also provide extra pursuits. I think, however, that it has to be a photo album of my loved ones and our treasured moments. It would be the closest thing to having them there with me, plus my visual memory is awful so this would be invaluable.

This month's favourites:
   Veronica Maggio, Fiender är tråkigt
   Mary Beard, Women & Power
   Chocolat (2000)