George Orwell and his poetry

26 Oct 2015

George Orwell and his poetry

George Orwell’s poetry was recently published as a collection. Apparently this is for the first time. Given how famous he is, I wondered why. Surely after his death any unpublished work would have been extra-valuable.

The BBC interview goes some way towards explaining this. According to Dione Venables, the collection’s editor, he wasn’t a great poet and the value of much of his verse lies in what it says about him as a person, not his politics nor poetry in general.

He was a persistent poet. Like many, he discovered the joy of writing verse when very young, but unlike many, he never gave it up, which means that this collection covers a lifetime’s output.

A good deal of his poetry has been available for some time. He published a few in magazines himself, and various websites have selections. The Orwell Prize site has links to several and also to scanned original pages of others – his handwriting was reasonably legible, but they are still difficult to read.

A lot of the poetry is light and easy reading:

A happy vicar I might have been
Two hundred years ago
To preach upon eternal doom
And watch my walnuts grow;

But born, alas, in an evil time,
I missed that pleasant haven,
For the hair has grown on my upper lip
And the clergy are all clean-shaven.

There are several more, similar, verses.

Cover picture from Scarthin Books.

12 thoughts on “George Orwell and his poetry”

Sharmishtha Basu on November 17, 2015 at 6:19 am said:

ha! I have seen a movie on his novel animal farm, it is masterpiece.

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- E A M Harris on November 23, 2015 at 6:51 pm said:
  
  I would like to have seen that. I once saw some scenes from an animated version and it was very strong and quite scary, but never saw the whole film. Thank you for stopping by and commenting.
  
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Baydreamer on October 27, 2015 at 2:59 pm said:

Thanks for sharing! I’m taking an English class in college and we recently read one of his essays, Shooting an Elephant, which was difficult to read, if I might add. But I enjoyed this poem…

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- E A M Harris on November 23, 2015 at 7:14 pm said:
  
  Thank you for your comment; sorry to take so long to reply. I looked up the essay in Wikipedia and it sounds good, but I wouldn’t want to read about the elephant’s death.
  
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  - Baydreamer on November 23, 2015 at 8:54 pm said:
    
    It was the toughest essay to read yet!
    
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  - E A M Harris on November 24, 2015 at 7:15 pm said:
    
    I can well imagine it would be, but good on you that you persisted. I believe there’s a theory that if we don’t step outside our comfort zone sometimes our world view shrinks and turns in on itself.
    
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  - Baydreamer on November 24, 2015 at 8:05 pm said:
    
    I agree with that theory! Have a good day!
    
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ann perrin on October 27, 2015 at 10:59 am said:

Brilliant post got me checking out more of his poetry. Thank you

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- E A M Harris on November 23, 2015 at 7:09 pm said:
  
  Thank you for visiting and commenting.
  
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bridget whelan on October 27, 2015 at 4:46 am said:

Reblogged this on BRIDGET WHELAN writer.

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businessinrhyme on October 26, 2015 at 6:28 pm said:

Thank you for sharing this!

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- E A M Harris on October 27, 2015 at 9:40 am said:
  
  You’re very welcome. Thank you for stopping by and reading.
  
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e a m harris

Roaming the byways of literature