Jeremy Noel-Tod

@jntod.bsky.social

5061 Followers 1326 Following

Poetry critic and editor. Norwich is my New York. Writing about poetry here: https://someflowerssoon.substack.com/

Dedication page which simply reads: ‘To my parents / who never read my doctoral thesis’
The Chancellor raise a glass to me, the taxpayer
Most have agreed that a literary league-table of the great- est poems of the 20th century was from the start an impossible task. Yet I feel I must show you the red card for the professional foul on Philip Larkin. In compiling your super-league Larkin was considered "too parochial" to be one of the big five. But wearing the odd cycle-clip and drinking a pint of beer or two doesn't stop you from writing great poetry. The discussion over the past few weeks has shown us that the loosest possible criteria for great poetry is that it be memo- rable and moving. Larkin always aimed to write poetry like this, and few would deny that he succeeded. I'm afraid that, like Wimbledon, he may be uncouth and uncultured but im- possible to dislodge from the top flight. I hereby proclaim Larkin's "Love Songs In Age" as the century's greatest poem. Andy Burnham. Warrington.
Quote tweet of Donald Trump in 2016 protesting against heckling of Mike Pence by the cast at a performance of Hamilton, with my caption: "We're gonna build a fourth wall, folks, and make the Brechtians pay for it"
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Hockney likes to quote a seventeenth-century verse on the subject of transparency. 'A man that looks on glass On it may stay his eye; Or if he pleaseth, through it pass And then the heav'n espy.' DH: I've always loved that poem by George Herbert. I know quite a bit of his poetry because I looked it up when I found that one. It's very good because you can look on glass. And if you do look at glass, you can't see through it, but then your eye can decide to go through it. Especially if there's dirt on the glass, you can look at that for a while, and then if you look through the glass you don't see the dirt. I love paintings of glass.
A bottle of Vitamin C serum called Clarity Drops
Emails text which says ‘They are all breakfasted’
Manchester University said: 'We want every student to have the opportunity to apply what they are learning before they graduate. That could mean a placement, short internship, live employer project, or work with a public or community.’
When we got there and he was parking he reversed hard into another car. I pointed this out, but he just said: Bumpers, Luke! They're called bumpers! It's what they're for!, laughing like a maniac.
Bins Is When Tip out before skips rendered to pavement patient waste sorted by hand tissue tuna can tangle talk trash nor yet no hot ash
The Polling Stations 'Yes, I suppose I ought to vote,' I said, and at the local hall, Manned by a woman in a coat, Stub-scrawled my paper for us all. The trestle tables, wooden booth, And metal box to 'have your say' In favour of some quarter-truth... And yet it seemed a festive day. Tomorrow, when the worded boards Embarrass us like middle names, The polling stations, and the wards, Will fade away like playground games.
Estate agent's window sign which says NO TENANT FIND OR SET UP FEE ON FULLY MANAGED PROPERTIES
OED search for 'brightlier' returning 0 results
Slushy brand called ‘Sir Lush’
Screenshot of final lines of the first typescript draft for e.e. cummings’ poem ‘in Just-/spring’ which reads ‘And the goat-footed balloon-man / Whistles / Fart / And / Wee.’
lucky Pierre noun the man (or the woman) sandwiched between the outer layers of a sexually active threesome US, 1942 Glorified in the following lyric: ‘Pierre gave it to Sheila, / Who must have brought it there. / He got it from Francois and Jacques, / A-ha, Lucky Pierre!’ (Tom Lehrer, ‘I Got It From Agnes’, 1953). Predominately gay male usage.
Guardian headline: Possum found nestled in with plush toys at airport gift shop in Tasmania
Screenshot tweet of Sam Altman saying “We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.”
Irish coins of different sizes, showing a horse, salmon, bull, hare, hound, hen, pig and woodcock
A close up of a five pound showing the words I PROMISE TO PAY THE BEAR
The Bookseller comment piece title: Are your books unintentionally alienating readers?
Twelve Epistles from Letter’s To Wendy’s by Joe Wenderoth August 19, 1996 Today I was thinking that it might be nice to be able, in one’s last days, to move into a Wendy’s. Perhaps a Wendy’s life-support system could even be created and given a Wendy’s slant; liquid fries, for instance, and burgers and Frosties continually dripped into one’s vegetable dream locust. It would intensify the visits of the well, too, to see such a care is being taken for their destiny.
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RAIN CHARM FOR THE DUCHY (title of Ted Hughes’ collection of Laureate poems)
THE SONG OF THE HONEY BEE (First published in the Daily Telegraph, 23 July 1986) Miss Sarah Ferguson at a ball in Floors Castle, the magnificent palace of the Duke of According to the folklore of the Scottish Borders, HRH Prince Andrew proposed to Roxburgh, which looks southwards over the River Tweed, just outside Kelso. There is one particular river pool which, because it lies directly under the wall of the old castle gardens, is known as the Garden Wall, and salmon tend to gather down there, in deep water. For the Royal couple, at the time of their marriage, the College of Heralds devised a composite symbol: a bee hovering over the flower of a thistle. The rich associations of this emblem were a challenge. The Bee has a long ancestry as a manifestation of the Great Goddess. I could see that she was hovering, here, as Venus the Goddess of Love, poised over the flower into which Adonis has just been transformed. Having ended his profane life, he is about to be lifted, reborn, into his new divine life on the breast of the Goddess, as in Shakespeare's favourite tableau. This seemed like rather a lot of fancy dress, for the newlyweds. So I suppressed it, and composed a song made out of glimpses of their more earthly circumstances. This song is being sung by the Bee who, instead of representing the Goddess Venus, is now her son, Cupid, the winged, hovering one, with the arrow and the honey.