The River's Voice: An Anthology of Poetry

by King, Angela; Clifford, Susan; Common Ground (Organization)

• ISBN13: 9781890132699
• ISBN10: 1890132691
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub Co

Summary

Rivers are an inexhaustible source of metaphors and meanings, linking us with numberless generations who have paused to wonder at the paradox of constancy and flow. Poetry has a special capacity to convey the elusive qualities of running water, its magical transformations, its correspondences with life's meanderings, and the particular qualities of actual streams and rivers. While in recent years some rivers have been cleansed and restored, so that they are healthier now than at any time since the industrial revolution, other rivers are under assault from the impacts of modern society--chemical pollution, the lowering of water tables, erosion of banks and stream beds, and flooding due to global climate change, as well as destruction of plant and animal habitat. In this book, more than 180 poems create a chorus of older voices (Shakespeare, Blake, Wordsworth, Dickinson) and new, from both sides of the Atlantic, including Margaret Atwood, Seamus Heaney, A. R. Ammons, Adrienne Rich, Randall Jarrell, William Carlos Williams, Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, Andrew Motion and Elizabeth Bishop.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 13
Foreword	p. 15
The Poems, A-Z by title
'Above all rivers thy river hath renown'	p. 21
Abstracted Water	p. 21
Along Almost Any River	p. 22
Anahorish	p. 23
Angler	p. 24
At Dunkeswell Abbey	p. 24
At the Sand Creek Bridge	p. 25
The Baite	p. 27
Ballade to a Fish of the Brooke	p. 28
The Banished Gods	p. 28
The Banks of Nith	p. 30
Bathing	p. 30
Beck	p. 31
Behind the Waterfall	p. 32
Beside the Wye	p. 34
Birmingham River	p. 36
Boundaries	p. 38
Brian Boru's Well	p. 39
Bridge	p. 40
The Brook	p. 41
The Brook	p. 41
A Brook in the City	p. 42
The Charles River (1)	p. 43
'Clunton and Clunbury'	p. 44
Composed upon Westminster Bridge	p. 45
Concord River	p. 45
Culvert	p. 47
A Day on the River	p. 48
Dean-bourn, a rude River in Devon, by which sometimes he lived	p. 49
Definition of a Waterfall	p. 49
Derwent River	p. 50
Dipper	p. 51
Dockland	p. 51
Downstream Effects: River Stour	p. 52
The Dowser	p. 54
Drouth End	p. 55
An Eel	p. 55
Eels at Night	p. 57
Embankment at Night, Before the War	p. 57
The Estuary	p. 59
'The factories, bathing in the Moscow river'	p. 60
First Day of September	p. 61
The Fisherman	p. 63
Five Rivers	p. 64
Flat Rock	p. 66
Flood	p. 67
Floods	p. 67
A Flowing River	p. 68
The Ford	p. 68
Fording the Flooded Goldie River	p. 69
Forest Pools	p. 70
'Gentle Brent, I used to know you'	p. 71
Gray Wagtail	p. 71
Green River	p. 72
Guests of Silence	p. 73
Heaven	p. 76
Heraclitus on Rivers	p. 76
'How shy the attraction'	p. 77
Hudson River School	p. 77
Hundred River	p. 79
Hungry Thames	p. 79
Huntingdonshire Eclogues	p. 80
If Anything Will Level with You Water Will	p. 81
In Avon	p. 82
In the Backs	p. 83
Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath	p. 84
Kingfisher	p. 85
Kingfisher	p. 85
The Kingfisher	p. 86
The Launch	p. 86
Liffey Water	p. 88
'Like Rain it sounded till it curved'	p. 88
Long Nanny Burn	p. 89
Lothian Burn	p. 90
The Mill-Water	p. 90
Mists over the River	p. 92
Mother Anthony's	p. 92
The Names of the Sea-Trout	p. 93
Net and River	p. 94
Not Drinking Water	p. 95
'Now the children are old enough ...'	p. 96
October	p. 97
An Offering	p. 98
On Sturminster Foot-Bridge	p. 99
On the River Avon, near Stratford	p. 99
Otter Out and In	p. 100
Penmaen Pool	p. 101
The Poet as Spirit of the River	p. 102
The Porch over the River	p. 103
The Question	p. 104
Repose of Rivers	p. 106
Rising Damp	p. 107
River	p. 108
River	p. 109
River	p. 110
River	p. 110
A River	p. 111
The River	p. 112
The River	p. 113
The River	p. 115
The River God	p. 115
River History	p. 116
The River Idle	p. 118
River in the Valley	p. 118
The River Meadows (In Flood)	p. 120
The River of Rivers in Connecticut	p. 121
River People	p. 121
River Profile	p. 122
River rising in India	p. 124
River Song	p. 125
'The Riverbed ...'	p. 125
Riverine	p. 126
Rivers	p. 127
'Rivers arise; whether thou be the Son'	p. 131
'The river's tent is broken ...'	p. 131
Riverside	p. 132
Round Oak and Eastwell	p. 133
Ruskin Remembered	p. 134
Rustic Fishing	p. 135
St Winefride's Well	p. 137
Salmon	p. 138
The Salmon Leap	p. 141
Sands of the Well	p. 141
Sap	p. 142
Scotland in an Oxford Landscape	p. 143
Severnside	p. 144
Shadwell Stair	p. 145
Sibard's Well	p. 146
'So went he playing on the watery plaine'	p. 146
The Soaking	p. 147
XII Song	p. 148
The Song of the Brook	p. 148
Sonnet	p. 150
Sonnet to the River Otter	p. 151
The Spring at Chedworth	p. 151
Spring Tide	p. 152
Springhead at Fontmell Magna	p. 153
Springs	p. 154
The Springs	p. 155
The Stream	p. 156
Sweet Thames Flow Softly	p. 156
Symphony in Yellow	p. 158
Tay Bridge	p. 158
Team Gut	p. 159
Thames	p. 162
The Thames	p. 163
'There are too many waterfalls here ...'	p. 164
'There is a willow grows aslant a brook'	p. 165
The Third Thing	p. 165
To my Mistris sitting by a Rivers side	p. 166
To the River Charles	p. 167
To the River Duddon	p. 168
Torridge Salmon	p. 170
The Trout Map	p. 171
The Twist in the River	p. 173
Two Rivulets	p. 173
A two-seater privy over a stream	p. 174
Under the Waterfall	p. 175
Valley	p. 177
Vermillion Flycatcher, San Pedro River, Arizona	p. 178
Vignette I	p. 179
Vignette II	p. 180
The Voice of the Rain	p. 181
The Watchers	p. 182
Water	p. 182
The Water Below	p. 183
Water Colours	p. 184
The Water Diviner	p. 184
The Water Diviner	p. 186
Water Everywhere	p. 186
Water Meadows	p. 187
Water Music	p. 188
Watercourse	p. 189
Watering Place	p. 191
Waterspout, 1853	p. 192
Well Water	p. 193
'Where is the sacred Well, that bore my Name?'	p. 194
'Where Stour receives her strength ...'	p. 194
'Who carved a bird and a fish'	p. 196
'Wide o'er the Brim, with many a Torrent swell'd'	p. 197
The Wounded Otter	p. 197
The Wye Below Bredwardine	p. 198
Acknowledgements	p. 200
A-Z list of Poets and their Poems with Sources and Acknowledgements	p. 202
About Common Ground	p. 221
Publications by Common Ground	p. 222
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.