Out and about… at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast for Louis MacNeice’s Autumn Journal, performed by Éanna Hardwicke

A personalised Valentine’s Card for Bibliophiles Tom Gauld - from The Guardian

‘One ship drives east and another drives west, With the self-same winds that blow…’ Ella Wheeler Wilcox - from The Winds of Fate

‘Your books I keep on the shelf beside my pillow; slim and strong stalks full of sap and bearing flowers…’ Tony Curtis - from Longley’s Work

‘There are homes on both sides of the microphone, and broadcasting is the connecting link between them…even if there is not as yet a wisteria-covered porch in front of Broadcasting House!’ from The Radio Times, November 1938. (illustration by Mervyn Wilson)

Looking skywards… City Hall, Belfast.

‘The pioneers of wireless saw it as a gift to all the people… Radio is unimpeded, voice to ear, mind to mind. In McLuhan’s words: ‘Appear on radio and people remember what you say. Appear on television and they notice your tie.’ Libby Purves - from The Times

‘In metaphysical language the theme is plurality - a theme which is present for all of us every moment of every day but which does not usually strike us with a sudden emotional impact. In this case it did!’ Louis MacNeice, 1961 (Letters of Louis MacNeice ed. Jonathan Allison)

‘Extraordinary what’s contained in a bird song… I tell you my favourite philosopher is a blackbird perched on a chimney pot and explaining to the morning the meanings of a morning…’ Norman MacCaig - from Different musics

Grant Snider - In Praise of Mediocrity

‘Such days, when the sun’s in a drawer and the drawer locked. When the meadow is dead, is a carpet, thin and shabby, with no pattern…’ Norman MacCaig - from February - not everywhere

‘Longley established a voice and a style that would carry through with original scintillant brilliance to his mature years… he considered his metrical effects to be ‘those moments when language itself takes over the enterprise and races ahead of knowledge.’ - from The Times

RT @adair_mark: ‘Good poetry for me combines two things: meaning and melody. And if there’s no melody there, it can’t be poetry…’ Michael…

RT @adair_mark: Out and about… with Michael Longley for Book Week 2024. Just brilliant! #bookweekni ⁦@LibrariesNI⁩

RT @adair_mark: How wonderful to hear Michael Longley reading his ‘favourite poem’, Harmonica on Radio 3’s Breakfast programme this morning…

RT @adair_mark: ‘Words arrange themselves in patterns. Words rhyme and alliterate. It’s the nature of language and the nature of our bodies…

RT @adair_mark: A little poetry for Book Week 2024 (21-27 October) from the wonderful Michael Longley… ⁦@LibrariesNI⁩

RT @adair_mark: ‘Describing the world in a meticulous way is a consecration and a stay against damaging dogmatism…’ Michael Longley - from…

‘Thirty days has September, April, June and November. Unless a leap year is its fate, February has twenty-eight. All the rest have three days more, excepting January, which has six thousand, one hundred and eighty-four.’ Brian Bilston - Mnemonic

And on the basis that it may not be too late to adopt another New Year resolution… Better Handwriting - Puffin Books (1954)