Poetry

One of the major criteria people have in judging themselves or others is that of success. I haven’t escaped the claws of the monster called ‘Wanting Success’: it may seem that I have, in that I don’t have a career: I’m not seeking success in what it is commonly thought to be. But the reality is that the notion of succeeding is still a strong part of me, only it gets focused on wanting magazines to publish my stuff…

Quoting ‘Gerard Manley Hopkins’ by Francis Noel Lees: “Throughout his life he shows an interest in the etymology + the sensory powers of words. He notes them down + makes conjectures frequently of a very perceptive kind about the kinship of words, + their sound symbolism. ‘What a philologist he might have made!’ is a recent expert judgment on this work of his…