National Poetry Day

In a recent question and answer session promoting the Cheltenham Literary Festival, Carol Ann Duffy said,

"For me, poetry is the music of being human. And also a time machine by which we can travel to who we were and to who we will become"

 *Collective sigh of wonderment* The music of being human is the most perfect description of what poetry is, and because it is National Poetry Day I thought I'd offer up a  list of some of my favourite musicians. In no particular order,

W B Yeats
Paul Celan
Hugo Williams
Simon Armitage
John Masefield
Sylvia Plath
Wendy Cope
Paul Muldoon
Rupert Brooke
James Fenton
and the emerging talent of West Country poet Deborah Harvey...

I shall have The White Birds by W B Yeats going round in my head all day now – the first chords of poetry that I remember hearing...
Which poets will you be celebrating on National Poetry Day?

Top Ten Writers (Today)

Until my lovely shed is finished I'm hot-desking with my husband -- nightmare -- I'm tidy and he's NOT! So for today's blog, rather than something profound and thought-provoking, I'm having to resort to a list.

Here are the ten writers I most admire (at the moment, because any time I read a good book the author automatically becomes my new best favourite).

• Hilary Mantel - for her humane, tender, all encompassing characterisation.
• Tim Winton -- for prose to plunge into; rounded, salty characters and a sprinkling of magic realism that wrong-foots and amazes me.
• Helen Dunmore - for blurring the boundaries between poetry and fiction.
• Geoff Dyer - for never, ever being obvious about anything; an oblique, bone dry, stylist.
• Hugo Williams - for making the art of understatement all his own; for never succumbing to any kind of literary compromise.
• Pat Barker - for her first world war trilogy: Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road  perfectly capture the pity of war; no one else can hold a candle to her.
• Miriam Toews-- for being sparky, witty and original.
• Lorrie Moore - for her unflinching, funny chronicles of the shortcomings of the human heart.
• Sarah Waters - for being a plotting supremo, her books are masterpieces of construction: smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand, prestidigitation!
• Georgette Heyer - because flu wouldn't be survivable without her. These Old Shades?  Bring it on...

N.B. Writing list for blog not soft option after all.  Makes you think what you value in other writers.  Makes you realise what you aspire to yourself.  Who would be in your top ten ?