Robert Girvan | Essays and Poetry 

Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky and Immortal Song The Beauty of a Formal French Garden Note: A shorter version of this article was published on my site and then substack. This is my latest, most complete version. In our era of declining education and mass media we often don't have the knowledge of past forms to use as a foundation to create new forms today. This article draws attention to some very wise words by Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky, and expands on them, to suggest som

Honouring Alexei Navalny with the poem "The Monument" In my recent post " Does poetry make nothing happen? I examine the complex relationship between poetry and questions of justice and history from many sides. In this essay, it use two poems of W.H. Auden, and my own award-winning poem "The Monument." My poem is in dialogue with Horace’s “Exegi Monumentum” and a similiar poem by Pushkin. I attempt to rethink and imagine these fine poems for our times, in the attempt to und

Reflections and poems concerning some lines in W.H. Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” Introduction: Questions, Questions, into the Infinite Aire “Does poetry make nothing happen?” is admittedly an awkward sentence. One might say instead: Does poetry make something happen? Can poetry change the world? Can poetry improve the world? Must poetry improve the world? Many other questions are shaded by these shining questions. A few are: Are these the right questions? Should poetry

Peony Petals: The Call Beyond Politics Photo by Thea Harrison on Unsplash Several years ago, I was trying, and mostly failing, to write a poem about a political event, which, while important in political terms, is not important here. I turned around and noticed that a few peony petals had fallen on the floor from the vase behind me on the counter. I marvelled at how beautiful, even perfect, they were. Then I continued working. I struggled with increasingly futility the next