by Robert Desnos     [The real ‘last poem’, 6 April 1944]Translated by Timothy Adès Day 514 of the daily new poems, and Timothy Adès writes: My biggest book is: Robert Desnos, Surrealist, Lover, Resistant. This is his last poem, 6 April 1944. Arrested and sent east, he is at Compiègne. On 30 April he will… Continue reading

Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy was born this day, 29 April, in Alexandria in 1863, and he died this day, 29 April, in Alexandria in 1933. And today is Day 513 of the daily new poems, on 29 April 2024. Did Cavafy write any poems of Spring? I think he would like this ‘Early peony’ by… Continue reading

Day 512 of the daily new poems.  Our poet Colin Pink looks up at a breezy Spring morning.   Spring breeze The breeze clatters on the leaveslike typewriter keys, drafting a memothat spins me around, newly unboundfrom cares that bent my head down. Now I am summoned to look up, awaketo the graceful dance of the seasons;a quadrille… Continue reading

German author Elisabeth Langgässer (1899–1950) was saved from deportation to the camps by her marriage; she became defined as a German-Jewish hybrid, a Mischling.  Her daughter Cordelia was deported, aged 15, to Theresienstadt and then Auschwitz in 1944. But Cordelia survived.  In this poem by Langgässer, furnished to us today by translator-poet Timothy Adès, Spring 1946 is conjured up… Continue reading

Many of us will be tempted to do a spot of gardening today in the Spring sunshine.  Our poet Fiona Clark harks back to the trenches of the First World War. Day 510 of the daily new poems. Gardening in the trenches France, the trenches, 1915. Along the line, Gillespie trailed, in thought,his mind with brothers, face-down in the mud,hands… Continue reading