When I was young, Masefield had been reduced to a poem or two in anthologies and then mostly disappeared from sight. This poems suggests that I ought to look into his poems. His long narrative poems, like "The Everlasting Mercy," could be interesting.
Masefield volunteered in military hospitals, started but not did not finish many war poems. In their fine anthology of First World War poetry, "The Winter of the World," Dominic Hibberd and John Onions speculate that the horrors he saw were more than he handle in words. He does have one fine poem that precedes his volunteer service, "August, 1914" (https://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=l&p=c&a=p&ID=20430).
There's also the experience--in prose--of young Arthur becoming a falcon in "The Once and Future King," a book I know I can never read again with the same joy it gave me as a child.
Yes! While I was writing this, I was thinking about his chasing Cully and thus finding Merlin, and had forgotten all about his actually being a hawk. There's also the marvelous, lyrical chapter (though it wasn't in the audiobook my kids listened to) where he's a migratory goose.
When I was young, Masefield had been reduced to a poem or two in anthologies and then mostly disappeared from sight. This poems suggests that I ought to look into his poems. His long narrative poems, like "The Everlasting Mercy," could be interesting.
Masefield volunteered in military hospitals, started but not did not finish many war poems. In their fine anthology of First World War poetry, "The Winter of the World," Dominic Hibberd and John Onions speculate that the horrors he saw were more than he handle in words. He does have one fine poem that precedes his volunteer service, "August, 1914" (https://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=l&p=c&a=p&ID=20430).
Some more good bird poems: "Thrushes" and "Hawk Roosting" by Ted Hughes.
https://allpoetry.com/Thrushes
https://allpoetry.com/hawk-roosting
Thank you! I was thinking belatedly about Robinson Jeffers's "Hurt Hawks," too: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51675/hurt-hawks
There's also the experience--in prose--of young Arthur becoming a falcon in "The Once and Future King," a book I know I can never read again with the same joy it gave me as a child.
Yes! While I was writing this, I was thinking about his chasing Cully and thus finding Merlin, and had forgotten all about his actually being a hawk. There's also the marvelous, lyrical chapter (though it wasn't in the audiobook my kids listened to) where he's a migratory goose.