Poetry

Click on a cover to explore a book
A couple of people have - independently of each other - suggested that I consider moving my "Poem of the Month" nearer the front of all the accumulative blurb. This makes excellent sense (now that this slot is becoming a very extensive 'historical' report on past poems!)
I'm less happy about the state of the world: the whims and paranoid worries of some of its political leaders that could well determine whether or not change is to be drastic!
In 2019, the world - certainly the western world - seemed to become more fragmented and protectionist, and to grow more nervy paranoic - feeling, rightly or not, culturally under 'threat'! What will arise out of this wild pandemic turn-about in 2020 will be interesting to follow! 
I have remained very productive throughout this "lock-down". finishing my responses to OTTO FRELLO's paintings, writing various 'existential' pieces, and suddenly finding myself writing a series of  'autobiographical' childhood pieces as well ... a big, mixed bag, probably driven (deep down in my psyche) by some kind of carpe diem panic! I hope to show some of these in this "Poem of the Month" slot during the remainder of the year or longer. Use of a FRELLO- or an OLBINSKI-response could also occur - being that I have written so many.
 
FROM NOW ON IT WILL BE MORE REALISTIC TO ASSUME A HOMEPAGE CHANGE (maybe a partial and/or staggered one) EVERY SECOND MONTH.

I HAVE BEEN EXCEPTIONALLY PRODUCTIVE SINCE THE START OF THE YEAR: THIS SITUATION ALLOWS FOR REGULAR CHANGES IN "POEM OF THE MONTH" ... I expect to put in a new poem EVERY THIRD or FOURTH WEEK, which I hope will make you want  to look for and read.
NB: I am surprised not only at the quantity of my writing, but also the variety of the poetry resulting from it - due to more unbroken time, and a wish to experiment more with form.
 
Since January 2019 'POP-OP Poeterne', a group of writers - mainly poets - based in Aarhus, of which I am the co-founder and coordinator, have had an agreement to write responses to the various exhibitions showing in AROS (the big city art museum) throughout 2019. This arrangement has continued throughout 2020 - even though being truncated greatly but this Covid-19 virus! We have now extended our agreement until the end of 2021, and are in the process of compiling our various responses, to both the AROS building and its permanent and visiting exhibitions into an Anthology of Poetic Responses, which should be published for sale by the early-summer of 2021.

New writing EVERY THREE/FOUR WEEKS:

Response writing to Olbinski, then, later, to Frello, has made me aware that I can help ideas come if I think of writing poems in series. This is one of 42 Frello-response poems at the book-binder's right now: 

THE STORM

The crashing stormwave sprawls all to ruin.
Men caught in the swell run to a drowning -
the beach, mass battlefield of beginning.
Women groan, shivering at their undoing, 
drown widow sorrow in grief-cleaving gowns -
clinging to the ruins of their making.

The breaking doomwave beheads all heartbeat,
throttles the seasapped strength of floundermen.
The bloody, rock-reefed mass burial of time
washes the sandslate clean of flailed footprint,
engulfs gasp - the whimper-town abdomen
heaving sobsoaked at the forsaking tide.

Names wail in the wind, clamour at tombstones -
"Anna!" "Bess!" "Marie!" choked in frothing throats.



Otherwise, WELCOME (should you be a new viewer): 
Please click once on the three collection covers in order to get information about the content and read (sometimes also hear) a sample from each. I will be changing the samples approximately every 6th week, so that other poems can be read, should you be interested.

A GROWING HISTORICITY (for those not already exhausted!):
It is now (1st of May 2015) possible to hear readings from both 'Tality' and 'Another', which I hope will link us closer together while adding to the presentation of the chosen poems.

The section "About Me" has been static - if not to say simply boring - since this "homepage" was started. From now on I will attempt to use the space a little more interestingly by adding thoughts and doings that engage me or have recently done so. The comments will be concise. I hope you'll want to read it.

As this homepage was started in December 2014: the first "poem of the month" was JOY.
 I come from the well-known historical, legendary town of Glastonbury. Every time I'm back there, I feel a special sense of peace - probably due to treading on the remains of saints with every other step I take. Two shorter poems, SACRÉD ISLE and CELTIC PRAYER, reflect the Celtic aspect sensed when in the grounds of the great ruined abbey or when on the Tor.
The peace experienced in the town of my birth that induced the two short poems is replaced with a poem that I hope reflects my social indignation.
I get particularly irate about the suffering of innocent victims whether they be individual 'outsiders', minorities, civilians trapped in warlike and/or despotic situations. When I respond to this kind of inhumane injustice and suppression I usually endeavour to write in a distanced manner, which often results in a poem I consider to be somewhat akin to a parable. MOB-SONNET is such a poem.
As I add a new poem to this page I look out and wonder at the beauty of spring: the brightness of colour, the silent energy of growth, bud-leaf- everchanging - not least, the magic of blossoming trees. This month's poem just has to be in praise of May: POSSIBILITY.
AT ONE reflects dithering confusion.
It's about time to give you a performance-style poem: SPECIAL OFFER that's akin to some of the poems found in the latter half of my collection 'Tality Tales'.
I endeavour to challenge myself by enforcing concision upon my poetry writing. This has resulted in "Memento", my second collection of published poems. This month's poem is short; characteristically combining nature and humanity: POPPY that I hope reflects my fascination and close study of nature, both with the naked eye and with my camera.
The autumn weather - having been fantastic - has now turned dark, damp and depressive and threatening; hence NOVEMBER - made all too pertinent by the present refugee situation.
We're now well into Advent - that "once-a-year" time when we are most inclined to make contact with those we consider friends, family or aquaintances who still remain on our 'list'! DECODING CHRISTMAS CARDS reflects this.
The refugee situation in Europe  remains critical and ineffectively redressed; with so many people suffering added worry as a consequence. The crass national-protectionist political response in the coldest season seems to make the following parable all too pertinent: SWEET SUFFERING.
I really don't know just how individualist, self-centred and cynical - not to say psychopathic - our western society is becoming in its obsessive need to experience as much and as extremely as possible; even at the expense of others! I found a tv-documentary about war tourism recently so obnoxious that I had somehow to respond to it: ABROAD-THOUGHTS FROM HOME (with thanks and no intended disrespect to Robert Browning).
There are signs of Spring: the earlier flowers are in bloom and the birds are booming out their song ... but what exactly is the purpose of this song? This month's poem tries to show that all's not rosey in the garden, in this commemorative year for Shakespeare! SPRING'S IN THE AIR reflects beauty and love as well as ugliness and hate depending on how one hears it.
We're again in the glorious month of May. Things are hotting up, not just weatherwise. KISS NOT SPEAK expresses a strong wish for constructive, peaceful 'meeting'; both the personal one-to-one and the political one-to-one between peoples and nations.
When one is woken up at 4 a.m. by birdsong, led by our wonderful resident songster the blackbird, and watches the sun rise on another beautiful summer day in June, the social and political worries are abated (for a while, at least!) BLACKBIRD (This poem is one of a number of bird poems I've been writing recently.) Attempting to copy the song-patterns of birds is proving something of a fascinating obsession, and will possibly end up as a section in my coming collection of poems, which is at the moment entitled "Mad Bird".
I'll feed you more bird food in a month or so.
There's another 'obsession' of mine at the moment that I wish to share with you this month ... Mr Donald Trump! What I write about this man and others usually takes the form of performance-orientated fictional 'monologues': CASINO KING. (NB now 2020: President Donald T. has proved so tiresomely good at 'over trumping' me in his paranoic idiocy that I've given up writing parodies about him!)
As promised, we return to birdcall. Dickie and Bill are still at it. So here is (based on an old wood pigeon duet): DO YOU RECALL?
Many of the birds are quietening just now - their procreative deeds done - and some are gathering to leave for the south. I met a ludomaniac in my garden earlier who wanted to bet on when he might get together with friends and move to the woods. I told him I didn't bet or play cards for money. He didn't take no for an answer! THE CARD DEALER.
The thuggish, respectless political tone reaches yet newer depths in the USA. I find this kind of verbal violence, as any kind of violence, antithetical to beauty! Now, it's male sexist belittlement of women, which makes me hasten to change this month's poem to what I hope is something more empathetic and unifying: GIRLHOOD.
While reading an amazing work entitled "Hunger" by the Spanish writer, Martin Caparros, recently, this drab month's poem came to me: POVERTY SONG.
TO ETERNITY and MOTHER of SINS have been trying to keep each other warm for reading during the darkest part of the year. They get replaced by ELSE, a Danish girl's name, but not so in English ... which results in this wordplay poem.
It's brightening up outside with signs of Spring - soon warm enough to entice bees out. Hence this month's simple poem, MATT BUZZ THE BEE; with a couple of serious themes in it! It's on the contrary darkening on the political horizon - with more leaders in powerful positions dictated to by their whims and paranoia and too little by sound diplomatic leadership! DREADING THE THAW reflects something of the general worry of 'Everyman'. The situation for refugees seems to get no better - only worse - as no humane, effective measures are agreed on at national and international level, while people fleeing are either left to rot up somewhere or get exploited: SURGE. Though there is primary focus on the present huge wave of migration, I hope that SURGE also manages to encompass the historical fact that there has always been migration. ANOESIS is, in a broader, more ambigous way, kindred to SURGE: the confused feeling of non-belonging - even crisis of personal identity - at feeling oneself an 'outsider'; a state of anomie. The word 'personal' reminds me that much of what I now write - due strongly to the many POP-OP poet readings in connection with this 'culture'year and my performance readings in general - is not as introvert as it once was. I still write this kind of poem occasionally, however, as PRAYER reflects.
I have been fascinated by a book of paintings since getting it in Gdansk this summer. The paintings are all by the contemporary Polish painter, Rafal Olbinski. Suddenly I wished to respond to/reflect on a couple of these paintings. I have now completed no.14 - all of sonnet length; with the artist's titles to his works being included in the final line or two of each poem.
 As I replace OLBINSKI No.3  with a new poem of the month the number of "Olbinskis" has reached 25 (with two doubles). However, to give myself a rest from this 'obsession', here is a villanelle WHILE HEAVY DEW OF MORNING ... relecting the melancholic beauty of Autumn (before next month's Olbinski!) OLBINSKI No.10.
SCENT of ELDERFLOWER has long been pervading this homepage. This has been due to a lot of further work on the Olbinski project, which was recently concluded after writing 70 poetic responses. This has been a fantastic "fairytale" commission for me during the first eight months of 2018. The Polish publication comes on the official market and is buyable from 5th October.
An ode-style poem to our darling dog gets me away from Olbinski for a while MERELY PLAYING DEAD, as does the poem following Kinsa's ode, BILLY BRUTUS (A character who may sometime turn up in a short story). It is, however, highly likely that my 'responses' to Olbinski's fascinating paintings will continue to appear throughout 2019, in between other of my poems; starting with WONDEROUS MATHEMATICS OF FEELING. This Olbinski-inspired poem did not get put into the book.
The idea of responding to visual art has proved a good way of me continuing to write after such an enormous, consuming Olbinski-project. RICH EARTH is a response to an exhibition entitled "Far From Home" to be seen at AROS Museum of Art until the end of October 2019. PICTURE is a second response to the same AROS exhibition. PERHAPS of LOVE is a short poem, having nothing to do with response to any picture - whether in AROS or in relation to Olbinski. Neither has the short poem ABOUT WAR. THE OLD TREE has been the first response to Otto Frello's work. I was introduced to Olbinski, but found Frello myself - in fact, being interested in his work prior to Olbinski; which was a sudden, active meeting. Work on Olbinski has been an important factor in me believing that I could also write response poems (= ekphrasis) to Frello's works. THE OLD TREE got the first response, probably because it echoed one of the tales in the big Welsh book of stories, the Mabinogion. I am very satisfied with THE BLUE BALL - another of my responses to Frello. Here is a non-Frello written during the worrying time of the pandemic: THOUGH NEVER CLOSER. Another non-Frello replaces this for three weeks: WHITES, BRIMSTONE YELLOWS FLY IN MEADOW LIGHT. Next quick-change poem is CHILDWOOD, a lengthy poem for me, and one oozing with structural seven! Then a contrast poem NO WINDOW. ARTY is a eulogy, and again something different but recent. The next poem of the month, YOUNG DADS, is a remembrance of a loving incident of a young father and two sons in a coach I watched when travelling. Back to Frello, now that my work is done, and I await the translations: THE OLD TOWN. This Frello has been followed by two narrative poems belonging to a group relating to tidal water: QUICKSAND and HUNGER. I now hop back to Olbinski, and use one of my 70 responses to his paintings: CIRCUMSTANTIAL HAPPINESS. With my Frello responses being at this moment bound into a new book, here's one of them: THE STORM.      














 

Photography

About me

Born in his own mists of time in Glastonbury - the Avalon of Somerset - to a Welsh mother and an English father, Ian David Lukins has been living for many years in the Mols Region of Jutland, Denmark, where he has primarily been teaching, writing, translating and doing photography...

FROM AN AGEING CORNER -Some Thoughts About Birth & Death:

We choose neither birth nor death. They are very different.
Birth is suddenly there, and life is given us - a gift.
Death is there waiting from the very moment of birth - a worry. The most deep-rooted worry we will ever have, embedded somewhere in our psyche, bearing the question "until when?"
Our consciousness of death grows in us as the years pass. The realization of our mortality tells us that there is less time left than the time we have already lived, and, with this realization, there is a growing awareness of the "when".
Life is a waiting, becoming heavier as this "when" gets inevitably nearer - the uncertainty of "when" can easily become filled with a growing fever of anxiety, perhaps also with a growing existential desperation, with each of us asking ourselves what we have done of worth in our life. Is there proof of one's existence? Will there be a footprint of remembrance, fading, as it obviously will, from the world of collective consciousness ... or no lasting footprint at all?
If we have been procreative, then our offspring will be concrete proof that we have existed. And, until they and others we have met socially forget us, we will continue to have existed - though constantly fading in their collective memory.
While we live, relationships grow in us rather like a tree - with the trunk being our parents and siblings. Our social tree fears loss of others, because they are parts of us, parts that our tree has gained and grown from - the bigger the branch, the greater the loss and the grief.
Those most important to us are those together with us as we grow up, those with us for many years of our life, or, if not so long, those who have had a marked importance and effect on us. When someone important like this dies, one from the generation immediately before ours or our own generation, loss can be great.
The longer we live, the greater the grief of loss outweighs the joy of new birth.
We are, of course, happy as each new birth is a procreative spit in the eye of death. But our smile may well fade back into subdued place, when we - now among the ageing and the old - realize that those being born two or three generations after us will never really be known well. Neither we nor they will have enough time to establish the same depth of intimacy or understanding that someone close of our own generation has with us.
The more close relationships we lose, the more alone we get to feel - maybe ending in a severe sense of loneliness, as one of the last of a generation not seemingly listened to or understood. We may then even wish for death - the definitive 'nothing' that can take away our consciousness, and thereby our worry of loneliness, possibly also our feeling of mortal pain. 

A LETTER TO GEORGE MACKAY BROWN:

(A 'Prologue' of explanation: I have just re-re-read a volume of poetry by the poet and writer, George Mackay Brown. I bought this collection - The Wreck of the Archangel - either on Orkney or shortly after returning from there in 1995. I - then - read it several times and wrote a 'thank you' on the back cover (that I now quote verbatim below). 
It was never sent off, as I discovered, sadly, that dear George Mackay Brown had died in 1996.
George Mackay Brown is undoubtedly one of the great Scottish poets of the 20th century ... re-confirmed for me by this last, enriching read!)

Written in May 1997:

Dear George Mackay Brown - Bard of the North,

I wish to thank you for your poetry - your rich story-telling, your often-vivid, sometimes-austere images, your marvellous 'picture-painting' with words.
When I first visited Orkney, early in 1995, I did not know of you. Now I read you and re-visit Orkney from my home in Denmark, hear your voice in all seasons, and feel that I have been on Orkney, intimately, many times.
Keep writing as long as you are able, you wonderful bard. I hope to keep reading, and listening.

Yours respectfully,
Ian Lukins

PS: You have ensured that I wish for a return visit to Orkney - to those sea-shaken, naked islands, to Kirkwall, and to Stromness (where I believe you live).
I may seek out your dwelling, but I won't try to enter. However, I hope this letter of gratefulness does.

THOUGHTS IN THE DARK:

What really scares is when Doctor Death turns up and takes your younger brother, your life-long playmate from primary school, then comes again and takes your Mum, and then your Dad, your favourite funny uncle, your spouse, your soul-mate, the very closest of the close, the ones you've shared most of your life with, who have shaped you, those closest who have stayed, who have always been there and who have mattered - not the many met during brief meetings or romantic flings that have only touched a single heartbeat - those few close enough to have pumped your heartblood, to have filled your brain again and again, those "me-surrogates" you have always wished to be with, always wanted to listen to for longer than was possible.
When the dear Doctor turns up and takes these, your scare takes a turn - becomes anxiety. You realize they are gone and lost forever - that you stand alone.
It's then you feel a deep shiverchill, sensing that your clothes are being taken off, that you will in just a moment be standing stripped naked ready to have Doctor Death's sweet-juiced health check yourself.

A COMMENT ON A LIMITATION OF FAME:

To my mind, Rowan Atkinson is a very funny man, a great comic actor, an enormously talented clown - I'm a true fan.
The main reason for this commentary is disappointment. I'll try to explain why:

Quite recently I decided to watch an episode of "Maigret" on the TV in which Rowan Atkinson was playing the famous Belgian detective.
I shouldn't have watched the programme. While watching, I soon realized that Rowan Atkinson, like other supreme comedian actors, just couldn't shake off his comic mantle. His role as Maigret was laden with yet more bathos than pathos.
I found myself wanting to laugh, but stopped myself - knowing that this kind of criminal murder wasn't meant to be funny ... even though Atkinson's expression was. His pipe - central to the figure of Maigret - seemed an awkward, unfortunate property for him. A heaviness, a shadow of Beanish awkwardness, hung about his performance ... like a shroud of grief.

I realized that this grief was my own: the grief of a fan, mourning an idol seen floundering in something 'not of himself'. An actor doing something too late, too wrong for him - his own comic talent being too well-established, too successfully-formed.
I think the mistake was largely due to something concerning the role - an already existent role that had been performed, rather than something new with no pre-conceived image, such as Mr. Bean, Black Adder, even Johnny English, the brilliant parody of Agent 007, which, in their variety, all have reflected the inimitable Atkinson 'personality'.

I saw the episode of Maigret through, desperately hoping that I would be able to adjust and accept Atkinson as Maigret. This didn't happen. Instead, I felt as if I were at a funeral, where feelings were strained and trapped, and it was impossible to feel happy.
I felt somehow cheated. Then I felt a frustration at everyone being cheated. The programme seemed a fraud.
Had Rowan Atkinson really wanted to act this role, or had his agent or a producer talked him into it? Surely, he didn't need to do it for fame or money. I felt that Rowan Atkinson had been cheated, or had cheated himself ... that he had cheated another actor out of a good chance at a leading role ... that he had also cheated his fans - including me.

I told myself to stop thinking so much about it - vowing neither to humiliate Rowan Atkinson's immense talent, nor to lose the enormous respect I had for him. So, I forced such thoughts to the back of my mind - considering the detective role just one BIG mistake!

However, this situation got me thinking further. It reminded me of the great Danish comedian, Dirch Passer, and his failed, near-tragic, attempt to act Steinbeck's Lenny Small in a stage production of "Of Mice and Men" in Copenhagen. Dirch Passer longed to act seriously, and prove that he could perform a completely straight role. He was not allowed to do this - due mainly to people's expectancy of him.
Passer wore a comic jacket that fitted so superbly that it became his straitjacket - fitting so tightly that it just couldn't be shed. For Dirch Passer it had become not only a jacket but a shroud.

Maybe, something similar is proving the case for Rowan Atkinson. I only pray that this is not so - hoping that he realizes, stops in time, and subsequently sticks to devising and creating yet more superb comic characters for us all to enjoy. 


A COMMENT ON THE POP-OP POETS "nearing 100 days":

POP-OP started as an idea in the summer of 2016 - a response to what was being planned for Aarhus (Denmark's second largest city) that had been chosen as one of two "Cultural Capitals of Europe - 2017". What we heard talk of was projects for prestigious events - events that could publicise this title, put Aarhus on the map, get seen, make its inhabitants proud, justify such an honour, such a choice.

It all seemed very grand and above our heads - as such plans requiring heavy funding and months of organising always do - and certainly didn't look likely to involve us.

The 'we' in this case was the motley group of local poets and writers, who were already reading their work at a number of venues in and around the city - some of them trying seriously to establish themselves, and, if not live by it, thrive on it.

I, being one of these, felt the usual response - the one urged on by the frustration of why seemingly everything had to be elitist to have any chance of being publically noticed - the classic sorry-for-self, I-don't-belong-to-the-fund-swallowing-club feeling; oh, those envious drops of wormwood!
I chose to defy this mood, and stop moping. The fact that our (my) local city had been chosen as a Cultural Capital of Europe for one whole year was just too good an opportunity to miss.

How could we, who were small and comparatively 'invisible', and who were present before the cultural year officially started, be perhaps beneficial and benefit? Could we establish ourselves better, promote writing in our city by becoming more visible, more active - meeting people where they lived and worked, instead of waiting for them to come out to the few fixed venues and find us; maybe even actively joining us by writing and reading themselves?

It would have to be grassroots, low-key, direct - on the streets, in public places: malls, precincts, parks. The money-train was already out of the station and rolling. And - though it would be nice to get hold of some of the funding-dosh - it wasn't the primary reason for forming the POP-OP poets.
For many of us 'serious' types writing is something we want, even feel the need, to do.

That's when I shared the idea with another local poet, Tomas Dalgaard.

Tomas and I were agreed. The chance should be grabbed, and as many people as possible should be met in their daily surroundings.
We needed a group, enough to form a corps. But we also felt that it was important to start strongly with a few of the best of us and then build up, as hearsay would be important; perhaps vital for continuation and success.

In hindsight we were possibly too cautious, too ambitious - resulting in little to no progress being made in 2016.
  
POP-OP was born in unsteady rush in the middle of January 2017. We were joined then by Daniel Mantel, who was as eager as us to make the idea work. Daniel coined the name 'POP-OP'; which, I'm sure, proved important in saving the whole idea from being still-born!
We became more realistic, choosing to perform our work for different groups of students from the humanities faculties at the city university.
We were five who read our work for the first time at the Student Café on Friday 27th January 2017 as 'the POP-OP Poets'. Henrik Giversen and Anders Gade had joined us; both of them good poets with strong voices and impressive performance presentations. The turn-out to hear us was meagre; half of them being international students who didn't understand much Danish.
As a group we didn't get the impetus we had hoped, but we had begun - knowing from this experience that we had to grow and build in earnest if there was to be a viable future.

This we have managed to achieve. The POP-OP Poets is today a corps of fourteen poets and writers - eleven of whom have already been in action.
With spring now in the air, and spring in our voices and legs, we feel ready for the challenge of meeting fellow citizens of our city with our writing.

PS: The POP-OP Poets continue to exist as a group, now doing performance-readings almost exclusively indoors, but still in a wide variety of spaces - not just library centres and literary cafés. We are 14 active members with very different styles, but all with a love of words, and a wish to express them surprisingly, with vitality and newness.   


A COMMENT ON POETRY:

Like Poul Valery before me, and surely quite a considerable number of those seriously active in expressing themselves poetically and even extending the art and craft of poetry, I believe that poetry must be read aloud. This is to me so essential, as sound and rhythm are vital components in being able to understand words sensually.
Literary analyses are all too often far too abstract and intellectual, failing - and, in worst cases, ignoring - to stress the musical quality of a poem.

All poetry, particularly lyrical poetry, uses sound and rhythm as central to expression. But no serious writer of prose ought to ignore these elements in the craft of storytelling either, if they wish to communicate intimately and deeply with the reader. The reader is listening through his or her eyes.
Readers have also become too intellectualised, and should - as was the case initially - if not return to being told stories and poems or being read to, then, at least, return to reading aloud in order to get a deeper dimension and intensity of experience - thus gaining a deeper love and understanding of words through the music of sound combinations made in collocation.
  

A COMMENT ON SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS:

This year (2016) many events are being organised to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. I'm one of a small group who chose to read some of his sonnets for discussion. Afterwards, I chose to go further by reading all 154 sonnets in sequence. This proved so fascinating that I have re-read them all several times since.

I have consciously tried to disregard the many wild-brewed academic theories about: who Shakespeare really was, the 'correct' sequence of these sonnets, who the young man being addressed actually was, whether or not Shakespeare was a homosexual etc. etc. and have read them closely at face value for their beauty and craftsmanship.
The read has been stunning, and revealing both as a thorough-going study of the intricate, complex character and nature of love, and as a reflection of Shakespeare's own creative, sensitive character.
 
The 154 sonnets - comprising two sequences: the first one, of 125 sonnets and an 'epilogal'12-liner(no.126), that I choose to call 'the beautiful youth', attempts to comprehensively characterize ideal, spiritual love; a direct 'I'voice address from Shakespeare to a man; the second sequence, comprising the final 28 sonnets, that I call 'the dark woman', at times using third-person address, portrays the character of physical desire and its detrimental effect on pure, untainted love.
In my view the irregularities, particularly in the first sequence, reflect natural changes of emotion arising out of any intimate love relationship, and enhance the constant flux of intense emotional passion and helpless insecurity any lover might feel. Shakespeare's creative genius and sensibility presents the full gambit of conflicting feelings reflecting how affected, devoted and dependent the 'I' voice is. His object of love is reverenced, urged, chastised, worshipped; receives tributes and jealous warnings.
It is in this first sequence that I sense the presence of Shakespeare; the insecure human being, full of sensibility and imagination. He lives for me so that I sense a thrill at knowing him spiritually in a way I've never discovered in his plays. In contrast, I find the wit, bitterness and distanced tone of the second sequence much more akin to that of his plays. These sonnets reveal a close relationship between Shakespeare's poetry and his passion.

Unlike the Petrarchan commentary on the meaning of love, I find myself presented in these sonnets with the direct, dramatic, vocally-witten, Shakespearean feeling of love; highlighted so masterfully by the contrastive presentation of carnal love in the final 28 sonnets, where the mistress is a lusty, luring temptress threatening - even desecrating - the ideal of pure love. In this second series the mistress is distanced and dangerous; the 'I' voice wary, feeble, subjected to her powers of seduction. The 'I' voice also expresses irony and sharp-tongued bitterness, suggesting that this 'dark woman' might well compete with him for the love of the 'beautiful youth'; Shakespeare seems doubly betrayed by his two 'loves'.

I have found these sonnets not only a fascinating presentation of the multifacetted character of love, but a further aid in appreciating Shakespeare's dramas; particularly his astute understanding and awareness of human nature.

"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." (final couplet:sonnet xviii)'

Shakespeare has done it. In these love sonnets truth and beauty have in their way defied death and the ravagement of time. We're still reading and being enriched by the insight and beauty in them more than 400 years after they were written!
I hope you'll now wish to read them yourself; aloud, of course.*

* FOOTNOTE: Now, near the end of this Shakespeare commemorative year (with four full readings of the 154 poems, plus a public reading of 14 of them in 'dialogue' with six pieces of music by Dowland under my belt), I reiterate the joy and enrichment his love sonnets have given me.
Should you wish to buy a copy of my poetry or comment constructively about any poem, please contact me via my e-mail: "ian at lukins dot dk"