A favourite poet...

Charles Causley.

His Introduction to the Puffin Book of Magic Verse, an Anthology chosen by Charles.

“All poetry is magic. It is a spell against, failure of imagination, ignorance and barbarism. The way that a good poem works on a reader is mysterious, as hard to explain, as the possible working of a charm or spell. A poem is much more than a mere arrangement of words on paper, or on the tongue. Its hints, suggestions, the echoes it sets off in the mind, and its omissions (what a poet decides to leave out is often just as important as to what he puts in)). All join in   with the reader's thoughts and feelings  to make a kind of magical union.”

I am the Song.

I am the song that sings the bird.

I am the leaf that grows the land.

I am the tide that moves the moon.

I am the stream that halts the sand.

I am the cloud that drives the storm.

I am the earth that lights the sun.

I am the fire that strikes the stone.

I am the clay that shapes the hand.

I am the word that speaks to man.

The Recruiting Drive.

Under the willow the willow

I heard the butcher bird sing.

Come out you fine young fellow

From under your mother’s wing…

You must take your clothes off for the doctor

And stand straight as a pin,

Hisss hand of stone on your white breastbone

Where the bullets all go in.