Roy’s Reviews > Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy > Status Update

The first pages I’ve read since deciding I’m going to Italy for half a year to finish my first thesis. This feels more meaningful than I’d expect it to do.

Yes, I’ve decided to move from the Netherlands to a farm in Italy, help on the land, remove myself from the urban environment and spend time in nature, with my hands in the soil, think, read, and write.

And all else that comes with being free.

Reading this while waiting for my turn at the barber’s is just… lovely.

Those few pages were strongly revitalising.

I hadn’t read leisurely in way too long.

I'm starting to build up to and into it, again...

Truly, these are some of the most gorgeous lines I’ve ever read!

Both flowing freely, and fostering a narrative.

Such a respite.

Yes, I’m glad I purchased this.

I truly missed this in my life.

Now to see if I can find something similar in my native Dutch.

So refreshing to read this metred, if not rhymed, verse. Contemporary poetry seems to be devoid of that, at least here in the Netherlands.

Which is not all too surprising, with the lack of respect this time shows for the tradition, bundled with inventiveness towards quantity only.

Poetry as my new bedtime reads?

Why didn’t I think of this before!

Perhaps because I’ve only been reading poetry during the morning, or, recently, poetry that requires special attention (Dante’s Divine Comedy with the explanative notes; a bundle of Heine’s including the original German, which I’m not proficient in).

Hardy’s poetry merits special attention, too, but at least my English is proper.

For someone who writes poetry, I’ve read awfully little of it.