Friends for 15 years, these two great poets met in the final decade of the 18th century....
By Amna Ameer
Can you learn pain?
Can you borrow an experience
Can you walk around a surrogate body
And pretend you’re the one carrying those bruises
Can you fake what goes inside the mind?
Can you plant thoughts that belong to someone else
Is there a way
To touch the surface
And drown in the waves
Of devouring emotions
That keep one up at night?
Can you sleep through your days
And still claim to know
What it’s like
To walk with your anxieties
Like shadows that follow through
Can you taste the blood
Of unsaid words
And paint them over paper
As poetry
And wonder why it doesn’t rhyme?
Can you keep petals
Of past springs
And notice why this spring smells different
Can you carry funerals
And lay your loved ones to eternal sleep
And be completely unbeknownst of the raging ache
Can you tell what it’s like
To have no way out
But to pen down
Broken verses
As salvaged breaths
Of a burning house
When fires rise up
And flames take in
Every lost belonging
Can you, who doesn’t know
Of what it’s like
To rise of the ashes
Afterwards
Tell what it means
To be alive once again.
Friends for 15 years, these two great poets met in the final decade of the 18th century. During this time, they joined forces for the first volume of Lyrical Ballads. This was a significant piece of work, which represented a seismic shift with regards to the English reading public’s tastes. Unfortunately, their relationship went downhill, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge learning that Wordsworth thought he was just a “rotten drunkard.”
*
These were two poets who both died far too young. They remained friends until Katherine Mansfield died in France in 1923. They were fierce supporters of each other’s work once their strong friendship formed in the later years of their life. Lawrence even used Katherine Mansfield for inspiration in his novels, with Gudrun, a character in Women in Love, largely being drawn directly from her. Like any strong bond though, they did have ups and downs. Long separations and periods of turbulence did have an impact on their relationship.
By Ayesha Malik
Is it wrong to be elated?
Feeling joyously inflated
Over a single task done
A triumph second to none
Instead of staying home
Wasting away all alone
You know deep down
That it is okay
To stay and pray
To love and to play
Work after a day
Let your fears allay
Revel in the day
No remorse no regrets
Blessed be the best
To carry it out
Till the lights are out
Compiled by SK
