I recently purchased a copy of Wendy Cope's anthology, 'Two Cures For Love-Selected Poems 1979-2006. Wendy Cope is an English Poet who delights in quirky, observational poetry appealing to the reader's emotional self. A witty, contemporary poet, she cleverly mixes humour and serious thought provoking  moments in her wide ranging works. Wendy Cope also likes to experiment and play with form. I like that very much... I found myself most beguiled by the poet's treatment of nursery rhymes. In two of the poems she re-imagines these classic rhymes under the influence of master poets like William Wordsworth and T S Eliot.  This sparked an idea and I began to imagine an encounter between John Keats and the legendary nursery characters, Jack and Jill. Here is the resultant poem: John Keats Encounters Jack and Jill Twas the season of mists When two ascended the hill To fetcheth water in a pail One Jack One Jill Jack did tumble Breaking his crown Resulting in a burning forehead ...

Author, Tess Somerwell, earlier this month, wrote in an article for Psyche Magazine-  ''Long poems might actually be the perfect form for the present: they can represent the sheer unmanageable scale, the vast and messy confusion, the epic ambivalence, of these times.' John Keats, viewed  a long poem as a space to wander. He felt it was a space you could return to in your memory, or in a rereading. He believed a long poem allowed the reader to dip in and select sections they wished to ponder, at their leisure. I believe Keats was right. I have often found myself doing this exact thing when reading a long poem. Well, the poem I am sharing with you is 'longish.' It certainly qualifies as an example of Rant Poetry. It became a poem that refused to be denied. It banged around in my head for quite some time demanding to be let out.  Rant poetry can be a release, a relief. It also represents the release of a pressure valve in many ways. Another way of describing these poem...