Poetry is Dead, but Living is Not by Jay Hobbs

Poetry is Dead, but Living is Not is a collection of 3 books of poetry written by Jay Hobbs. Not a huge volume, just 95 pages but the collection is thought provoking and emotional.

Within the book is a huge variety a poems starting with life, love and death, which are typically traditional themes of poetry, it then moves on to Religious inspired poems and then concludes in the third section with a mixture of traditional and religious poems.

I liked the whole collection, as I said it was very thought provoking and my favourite has to be "When I died alive"

Disclaimer - I was provided with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Sunday Stamps - Black Swans

As I didn't have anything suitable for the poetry theme this week, I went with this one, that fits with my A-Z Challenge theme of Australia. The swan on this stamp looks so graceful, its poetic.

Black Swans are quite common in Australia and whilst they have become popular in areas of Europe, certainly in the UK we are not self sustaining on breeding them. Ironically, there is a small group of black swans in the nearby town of Dawlish Devon.

The Black Swan by Randall Jarrell

When the swans turned my sister into a swan
I would go to the lake, at night, from milking:
The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan,
A swan's red beak; and the beak would open
And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon.

Out on the lake, a girl would laugh.
"Sister, here is your porridge, sister,"
I would call; and the reeds would whisper,
"Go to sleep, go to sleep, little swan."
My legs were all hard and webbed, and the silky

Hairs of my wings sank away like stars
In the ripples that ran in and out of the reeds:
I heard through the lap and hiss of water
Someone's "Sister . . . sister," far away on the shore,
And then as I opened my beak to answer

I heard my harsh laugh go out to the shore
And saw - saw at last, swimming up from the green
Low mounds of the lake, the white stone swans:
The white, named swans . . . "It is all a dream,"
I whispered, and reached from the down of the pallet

To the lap and hiss of the floor.
And "Sleep, little sister," the swan all sang
From the moon and stars and frogs of the floor.
But the swan my sister called, "Sleep at last, little sister,"
And stroked all night, with a black wing, my wings. 

Submitted as Sunday Stamps hosted by Viridian's Postcard Blog

Description of the Island of St. Helena

Written by an Officer in the Honourable East India Company and published in The News on Sunday 13th August 1815.

Description of the Island of St Helena

Rugged rocks and lofty mountains,
Interspers'd with crystal fountains,
Here and there a grove of trees,
Are all the wandering stranger sees;
The tradesmen, imitating fops,
With heads as empty as their shops;
The girls, drest out from top to toe,
Like painted dolls in puppet-show; 
Unsocial wretches here reside,
Alike their poverty and pride, 
Throughout this Isle, there's scarce a creature
With either breeding, or good nature:
For rugged rocks, and barren fields, 
Are all that St. Helena yields*.

*Except an abundance of water-cresses and plenty of fish.


A truly lovely poem, representing the Island of St Helena and the life of a distant ancestor; George Hutchins Bellasis.


George was an Officer in the Honourable East India Company. Following a period of illness he was destined to return to England. Whilst on the ship back to England he became unwell and the ship docked at St. Helena. George Hutchins Bellasis remained on the island for 8 months recuperating. While living on the Island he captured the island in a series of watercolours. Once he had returned to England the series of watercolours were published in 1815.

Taking part in the 3rd Annual Great Genealogy Poetry Challenge hosted by West in New England

Those Places Thursday - The House with Nobody in It by Joyce Kilmer

The House with Nobody in It by Joyce Kilmer

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

This poem was written in 1913 by Joyce Kilmer