No Place Like Home

Table Of Contents

‘COME LIVE WITH ME’: SETTING UP HOME
ISABELLA LICKBARROW Colin and Lucy
JOHN MILTON The Blissful Bower
PAM AYRES Yes, I’ll Marry You, My Dear
GEORGE MACKAY BROWN The Finished House
RUTH STONE The Cabbage
SIMON ARMITAGE ‘Mother, any distance . . .’
EAVAN BOLAND A Ballad of Home
 
HOME, SWEET HOME
LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA ‘Cling to thy home!’
JOHN CLARE Home Happiness
CAROL ANN DUFFY The Windows
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL From A Winter Evening Hymn to My Fire
W. H. DAVIES The Treasured Three
ROBERT HERRICK A Thanksgiving to God for His House
EMILY DICKINSON ‘I learned – at least – what Home could be –’
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH From Home at Grasmere
BILLY COLLINS A Sense of Place
PHILIP LARKIN Home is so Sad .
PAULINE PRIORPITT Day 60
ANNA MCDONALD Prospect Heights Lament
WENDELL BERRY Stay Home
 
REMOVALS
LINDA PASTAN To a Daughter Leaving Home
ANNA AKHMATOVA Lot’s Wife
OSIP MANDELSTAM Tristia
RITA DOVE Exit
W. S. GRAHAM How are the Children Robin
DOUGLAS DUNN A Removal from Terry Street
S. T. COLERIDGE Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement
CHARLES HARPER WEBB Loving a House
VSEVOLOD NEKRASOV [untitled]
W. S. MERWIN The Truth of Departure
 
EAST, WEST, HOME’S BEST
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW ‘Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest’
ROBERT BROWNING HomeThoughts, from Abroad
BILLY COLLINS Consolation
JOACHIM DU BELLAY From The Regrets
OVID From Tristia
KING ALMU’TAMID OF SEVILLA Remembering Silves
MAHMOUD DARWISH I Belong There
SIR JOHN HARINGTON Of the Warres in Ireland
AHMED TIDJANICISSÉ Home News
MARINA TSVETAEVA Homesickness
ANNE BRONTË Home
LI T’AIPO Night Thoughts
JULES SUPERVIELLE Homesick for the Earth
 
HOMECOMINGS
CATULLUS Carmen XXXI
JUDITH WRIGHT Two Hundred Miles
HOMER From The Odyssey
CAROL ANN DUFFY Who Loves You
CAROL RUMENS Coming Home
LENRIE PETERS Homecoming
RUDYARD KIPLING The Prodigal Son
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA Homecoming
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI At Home
GEORGE MACDONALD The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs
 
HAPPY FAMILIES
ROGER MCGOUGH Happiness
JACQUES PRÉVERT Breakfast
THOMAS CAMPION Fortunati Nimium
GEORGE MEREDITH From Modern Love
WENDY COPE Being Boring
LISEL MUELLER Happy and Unhappy Families I
ELIZABETH HANDS On an Unsociable Family
KENN NESBITT My Family’s Fond of Gadgets
NAOMI SHIHAB NYE Where Children Live
EAMON GRENNAN Father in Front of a Picture
ELIZABETH BISHOP Sestina
STEVIE SMITH A House of Mercy
 
ABOUT THE HOUSE
CHARLES TOMLINSON The Door
ROBERT BROWNING Love in a Life
JOHN DONNE The Sunne Rising
AMY LOWELL Bath
DAVID YEZZI Living Room
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Winter’s Song
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS This is Just to Say
W. H. AUDEN The Geography of the House
JOY HARJO Perhaps the World Ends Here
 
SPICK AND SPAN
BUSON ‘Patching a tear’
MICHAEL LONGLEY Household Hints
ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD Washing Day
VICKI FEAVER Ironing
FIONA WRIGHT From Tupperware Sonnets
MARILYN NELSON Dusting
BASHO ‘Year’s end’
GEORGE MACBETH A Tidy Poem on Untidiness
U. A. FANTHORPE What, in Our House?
 
A WOMAN’S PLACE
ANNE SEXTON Housewife
PHOEBE CARY From Shakespearian Readings
ANON. From Ballad of a Tyrannical Husband
EMILY DICKINSON ‘How many times these low feet staggered –’
EAVAN BOLAND Woman in Kitchen
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING From Aurora Leigh
ELIZABETH MOODY Sappho Burns Her Books and Cultivates the Culinary Arts
YI LEI From A Single Woman’s Bedroom
 
VACANT POSSESSION
EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON The House on the Hill
RYOKAN An Abandoned Hut
MEDBH MCGUCKIAN Little House, Big House
ELIZABETH JENNINGS Old Woman
VIDYA PANICKER Aftermath of a Departure
VITTORIA COLONNA From Letter to Ferrante Francesco d’Avalos
SHARON OLDS Forty-One, Alone, No Gerbil
RUTH STONE Curtains
EDWARD THOMAS Wind and Mist
 
‘I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER . . .’
THOMAS HARDY The Self-Unseeing
JOHN CLARE My Early Home
JEANNE MARIE BEAUMONT When I am in the Kitchen
JOHN EPPEL Remember Granny Trot’s Mulberry Jam?
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON From In Memoriam
JOHN UPDIKE Shillington
PHILIP LARKIN I Remember, I Remember
RUTH PITTER Time’s Fool
 
TOWN AND COUNTRY
AEMILIA LANYER From The Description of Cookeham
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER My Grandmother’s New York Apartment (I)
HORACE Epodes, II
ROGER MCGOUGH Posh and Shite
MAXINE KUMIN Chores
REBECCA WATTS Economics
JON STALLWORTHY Feet off the Ground
 
THE PEOPLE NEXT DOOR
JOHN HEYWOOD A Quiet Neighbour
MARTIAL I, 86: My Neighbour, Novius
IAN HAMILTON Neighbours
BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH Neighbours
DAVID ALLAN EVANS Neighbors
HESIOD From Works and Days
JOHN ASHBERY Breezeway
ROBERT FROST Mending Wall
SEAMUS HEANEY The Nod
 
ENTERTAINING
ROBERT HERRICK Ceremonies for Christmasse
RUPERT BROOKE Dining-Room Tea
SIR JOHN BETJEMAN How to Get On in Society
OGDEN NASH Children’s Party
MARGE PIERCY Getting It Back
MARIANNE MOORE Silence
MARTIAL III, 27: Dinner Invitations
ISSA ‘Plum blossom scent’
BRENDA SHAUGHNESSY Visitor
 
DECEPTIVELY SPACIOUS
PETRONIUS ARBITER ‘Small house and quiet roof tree’
W. B. YEATS The Lake Isle of Innisfree
OSWALD MBUYISENI MTSHALI Inside My Zulu Hut
WILLIAM COWPER From The Task
ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA The House of Socrates
MARK BOOG Small House
NAZIM HIKMET The Blue-Eyed Giant, the Miniature Woman and the Honeysuckle
RYOKAN ‘My hut lies . . .’
KATHLEEN RAINE ‘This little house’ .
 
SAFE AS HOUSES
GEORGE BRUCE My House
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Block City
PAKA¯LIKK ¯UTTA ¯ N The Playhouse
GILLIAN CLARKE Hearthstone
ANNE BRADSTREET Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666
VSEVELOD NEKRASOV [untitled]
U. A. FANTHORPE Sirensong
BERTOLT BRECHT Place of Refuge
BERNARD O’DONOGHUE Safe Houses
MARY E. COLERIDGE The Witch
UMBERTO SABA The Broken Pane
 
HOMELESS
HARTLEY COLERIDGE ‘A lonely wanderer upon earth am I’
PADRAIC COLUM An Old Woman of the Roads
GEORGE CRABBE From The Village
IMTIAZ DHARKER Living Space
 
DREAM HOUSE
MARY OLIVER On Losing a House
A. A. MILNE The Wrong House
AMY LEVY The Old House
OODGEROO NOONUCCAL The Past
BELLA DIZHUR ‘Here is an island . . .’
RHIAN EDWARDS The Estate Agent’s Daughter
 
ON HOUSES AND HOMES: MEDITATIONS
KAPKA KASSABOVA A House We Can Never Find
JOHN BURNSIDE What We Know of Houses
IMAN MERSAL The Idea of Houses
VINITA AGRAWAL Home
LES MURRAY Home Suite
DEREK WALCOTT Love After Love
EMILY DICKINSON ‘I dwell in Possibility –’
PHILIPPE JACCOTTET Words in the Air
RUMI The Guest House
LAL DED [untitled]
JOHN DONNE The House of God
CARL SANDBURG Envoi: Home