Maurice Riordan

Maurice Riordan first collection of poems, A Word from the Loki, is on the shortlist for the T.S. Eliot Prize.

Poem: ‘The Lettuce’

Maurice Riordan, 19 October 1995

I gave the barrow-girl two quid for it, a frisée lettuce, a wild intricate wheel, nature’s very own bright-green mandala. A lot of money but I paid up gladly, even though at that time, anxious and overtired, I parted most weeks from something: my bike hitched to a loose strut; then gloves, umbrella, wallet, cards, glasses – all left on the train. I came to think of it as...

In a recent radio programme, Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell, two of the most prominent of the New Generation poets, retraced the journey undertaken by Auden and MacNeice in Letters From Iceland...

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