John Baker’s Blog

Dick Jones offers us a poem and talks about the poet, David Harsent author of the collection, Legion.
I think of Akhmatova’s famous encounter with the starved woman in the queue outside a Russian jail during the terror. The woman recognised Akhmatova and said: “Can you describe this?” When Akhmatova said, “I can”, a ghost [...]

1. Why do you blog?
To express myself in an immediate way, and to communicate with others. Reflecting on daily life comes naturally to me, perhaps because I am a long-time journal-keeper and letter-writer. Blogging is a combination of the two. It’s a very satisfying medium for me.
2. Which author and/or book has most influenced [...]

Jane Kenyon’s A Hundred White Daffodils is a collection of essays, interviews, newspaper columns and one poem. It also contains her translations of the poems of Anna Akhmatova.
The book was published by Graywolf Press in 1999, four years after her death from leukemia. It is prefaced with an introduction by Kenyon’s husband and fellow poet, [...]