Everyman Leonard Cohen Poems Cohen Leonard

Given that insects vastly outnumber us (there are approximately 200 million insects for every human) it is no surprise that there is a rich body of verse on the creeping, scuttling, flitting, stinging things with which we share our planet • Many cultures have centuries-old traditions of insect poetry. In China,where noblewomen of the Tang dynasty kept crickets in gold cages-countless songs were written in praise of these 'insect musicians'. The haiku masters of Japan were similarly inspired, though spread their net wider to include less prepossessing bugs such as houseflies, fleas and mosquitoes. In the West, poems about insects date back to the ancient Greeks, and insects feature frequently in European literature from the 16th century onwards

From Li Bai's 'Bring in the Ale' to Ted Kooser's 'Beer Bottle'; from Robert Burns's' John Barleycorn' to Carol Ann Duffy's 'John Barleycorn' (no, you are not seeing double), the poems collected here attest to humankind's long and joyous (mostly) relationship with the world's most popular alcoholic beverage. A surprising number of authors, and perhaps some surprising authors, have added their tributes to the brew. Here, to name but a few, we find Charles Baudelaire, John Betjamen, William Blake, Bertolt Brecht, Raymond Carver, Amy Clampitt, Emily Dickinson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Graves, Langston Hughes, Eric Idle, E. Nesbit, Flann O'Brien, Frank O'Hara, Sylvia Plath, Arthur RImbaud, Rumi and Hank WIlliams, all rather less than sober. Unsurprisingly, 'Anon