Lawrence, D. H.: Birds, Beasts and Flowers V1. 29 June 2012
 

[Wikipedia says] David Herbert Richards Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, and instinct.


This collection, D. H. Lawrence's Birds, Beasts and Flowers, is probably my favourite single volume of poetry. The poems range across the natural world, and the globe, reflecting Lawrence's travels as he wrote them.

Each one manages to take a living subject - a peach, a kangaroo or a hummingbird - and capture something unique about it, and in doing so change the very way the reader comes to see the living thing. Of course, being Lawrence, there's plenty of subtle - and not so subtle - reference to human life, love and sex woven into the acute observation of nature.

These are not quaint 'nature poems', but captured experiences and thoughts. Try even if you think you don't like poetry.