‘I found the poems in the fields / And only wrote them down’

December 19, 2017 7:06 AM

John Clare (1793-1864) was a poet: a peasant poet [PDF]; a nature poet; a dialect poet; a mad poet [PDF]. He was 'everywhere an exile'; 'a man out of time' who 'found the poems in the fields' .

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, here are a few seasonally-relevant poems: Emmonsail's Heath In Winter; Winter; To a Winter Scene; A Winter Wish; and The Winter's Spring.

There is a blog dedicated to his work. Enthusiasts may join the John Clare Society. If ever near Peterborough you might visit the cottage where he lived, or his grave; while in London he is commemorated at Westminster Abbey.

Previously at MetaFilter.

posted by misteraitch (7 comments total)

Also a character in Alan Moore‘s Jerusalem....
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:10 AM on December 19, 2017

Also namechecked in recent popular culture as the alias for the Creature in Penny Dreadful.
posted by aeshnid at 7:24 AM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

In the back of my memory I seem to recall seeing a plaque commemorating his long walk in Shefford, but reading his account again I see I must be wrong.
posted by Segundus at 9:49 AM on December 19, 2017

There was a lovely episode of In Our Time on John Clare.
posted by Kattullus at 2:33 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also a character in Alan Moore‘s Jerusalem....
And his earlier Voice of the Fire, which is where I first heard of Clare. Adam Foulds' novel about him, The Quickening Maze, was shortlisted for the booker a few years back.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 3:25 PM on December 19, 2017

The novel, the quickening maze also features him. It's not a bad book.
posted by smoke at 4:23 PM on December 19, 2017

"Authors and academics led by Simon Kövesi, editor of the John Clare Society Journal, have written to the Guardian to voice concern that the collection will be hit by the swingeing cuts expected for the region’s libraries."
posted by misteraitch at 1:30 AM on January 11, 2018