At first I was really excited that our bookclub this week was going to be “our favourite poem”. However, after skipping through some poetry over the weekend I realised the impossibility of such a task. For me it’s like asking “what’s your favourite song?” – a question which I am really unable to answer. It all depends on the year, the week, the moment, what sort of day I have had – as to the type of music I feel the need to listen to. I can go for ages without listening to any classical music at all, and then suddenly will have a burst of non-stop classic fm, digging out my old cds of violin concertos and piano music that have been gathering dust for years. It’s the same with contemporary and pop music. It’s been years since I went back to some songs and artists and then a phrase or fragment of a melody will enter my mind and I’m off.

I feel poetry might work the same way. I read back through some of the poetry that really spoke to me 15 years ago and found it so over the top in its romanticism that I almost couldn’t bear to read it. So it might be that there is no such thing as a favourite poem, just as there is no such thing as a favourite violin concerto or favourite book or song…just works of art that we need more at certain times rather than others.