Time's Tidings by Carol Ann Duffy (ed)

Time's Tidings

Carol Ann Duffy (ed)

This slim, well-balanced anthology has only 100 poems. Half are contemporary, the other half chosen by the poets. All the poems are about time: aging, death, change, golden moments, memories, clocks, being late, God and more. I took the book on holiday after my sister died and it was perfect - at times too close for comfort, but also provoking, deep, subtle and entertaining.

Extract

God is a Super-Director
who's terribly good at crowd scenes,
but He has only one tense, the present.

from The Old Enemy by Peter Porter

Parallels
  • It's a Wonderful Life, the film by Frank Capra
  • Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
  • Time's Arrow by Martin Amis