Description
Book Synopsis‘What is a poet?’ the title poem of this collection, Cosmos Mariner, asks and answers: ‘word-peckers, rhyming jackdaws of the world’. The Cosmos Mariner was a real ship which caught the attention of American poet Conrad Aiken (1889 – 1973) and piqued his interest further when, checking the shipping news, he found its destination was listed as ‘unknown’. This trope reappears throughout the dark undertow of this collection which contains poems reflecting the distracted political times of today. Against this, gentler poems such as The Cleggan Sonnets and The Curve of Love show Harding’s gift for capturing the fleeting moment of sight and sound and fixing them with a piercing simplicity that remains in the memory.
Table of ContentsThe Trainspotters 7 Nativity Play, Nice, France, Christmas 2018 8 Cosmos Mariner – Destination Unknown 9 The Million Dollar Fiddle 11 The Cleggan Sonettinas 13 The Killing Field Scheherazade 17 From a Railway Carriage 19 The Last Tramp in all England 21 King Cotton 23 Landfall, Small Island, Outer Hebrides 33 Catastrophy 35 Adlestrop Revisited 37 That First Step 39 Fool’s Gold 41 The Curve of Love 44 A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Eve 45 Driftwood Maps 48 A Murano Dagger 50 Sweetheart 62 Fír Na Mappa 63 Unity Mitford’s Dream 65 Hindu Kush Moon 67 Mythologies 69 The Long Acre 74 Dancing at the Cosmic Ceilidh 76 The Price of Sugar 78 Warm Summer Grass 80 The Paths 81 The Corrandrum Vase 82 Twitterstorm #Luther@Wurms 85 Undine – A Love Story 88 The Slap Bird 90 Love on the Scarborough Train 91 Paddy’s Rambles Through the Park 93 Things You Will Never Know – #42 95 Bells at Midnight – New Year – 2015 97 This Morning War and Peace Was Sick 99 A Letter from Connemara 101 Moon Over the Bens 103
