Stanzas (Poetry)

For me, poetry is the first art. And I never underestimate or forget the importance of poetry anthologies. The anthology I somehow acquired as a child - with a green and yellow cover - and yes, I have a copy of it now though it's not the one I had way back then, well, it really shaped my tastes and appreciation of poetry. And I still love many of the poems in that timid little volume and think of them all the time.

I even think of some of the poems written by Anon, whom I thought of as a Roman woman wearing a toga with a long blonde plait hanging down over her shoulder.

At that time - when I was about 10 - I also thought that a man (of course) named Authorised Version had written the Bible that I was given as a prize at Sunday School.