George Barker (poet)
George Granville Barker (26 February 1913 – 27 October 1991) was an English poet and author.
Quotes
[edit]- To be so closely caught up in the teeth of things that they kill you, no matter how infinitesimally kill you, is, truly, to be a poet: and to be a poet in fact it is additionally necessary that you should possess the tongues and instruments with which to record this series of infinitesimal deaths.
- "Therefore All Poems Are Elegies" in New Poems : 1940 : An Anthology of British and American Verse (1941) edited by Oscar Williams, p. 15
The True Confession of George Barker
[edit]- I, born in Essex thirty-four
Essentially sexual years ago,
Stepped down, looked around, and saw
I had been cast a little low
In the social register
For the friends whom I now know.
Is a constable a mister?
Bob's your uncle, even so.
Turn on your side and bear the day to me
[edit]- Turn on your side and bear the day to me
Beloved, sceptre-struck, immured
In the glass wall of sleep. Slowly
Uncloud the borealis of your eye
And show your iceberg secrets, your midnight prizes
To the green-eyed world and to me.
Summer Song
[edit]- My one, my one, my only love,
Hide, hide your face in a leaf,
And let the hot tear falling burn
The stupid heart that will not learn
The everywhere of grief.
