Poems of the Middle Period 1822-1837 Poems in Order of Manuscript

Summary: "During the twentieth century, John Clare (1793-1864) has established himself in his own way as a poet's poet. John Ashbery, Edmund Blunden, Donald Davie, Geoffrey Grigson, Seamus Heaney..., and Theodore Roethke (among others) have all paid tribute to him, sometimes in essays, more often in their own verse....As a poet (and as a prose write) John Clare was unique. He shares, however, not only some of the same concern...s as Robert Frost, but Frost's quality of being complex yet not 'difficult' or obscure. At a time when the audience for contemporary sometimes seems to be shrinking to a few academics..., the number of people who continue to discover and avidly read Clare is remarkable." [read more]