2020

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

Hello!

Welcome to my first ever First Lines Friday! I have been following this weekly feature for a while now and have decided to give it a go because I have been enjoying reading people’s posts and trying to guess the book.

So here are the first lines…

(The answer is below the cats!)

Her skin was rather sallow, Anne thought as she studied herself in the silver mirror, and she had too many moles, but at least her face was a fashionable oval. At eleven she had no womanly figure to speak of, but that hopefully would change in the next year or so.

The answer is Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession by Alison Weir

Fresh from the palaces of Burgundy and France, Anne draws attention at the English court, embracing the play of courtly love.

But when the King commands, nothing is ever a game.

Anne has a spirit worthy of a crown – and the crown is what she seeks. At any price.

So that is my First Lines Friday! Please drop me a link with your First Lines Friday and I will head over for a visit.

Friday Poetry: Stevie Smith

Happy Friday!

I hope all my fellow Book Dragons have some good books planned for the weekend.

This week’s poem is only short but it hits home with me at this time. This poem is about friendship and spending time with friends. I must admit I miss my friends at the moment. My best friend is a 4 hour car journey away and I miss her like crazy. We speak daily but it isn’t the same as a proper catch up. Hopefully we will be able to meet up soon.

Florence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith (20th September 1902 – 7th March 1971), was an English poet and novelist. She was awarded the Cholmondelay Award for Poets and won the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry.

The Pleasures of Friendship

The pleasures of friendship are exquisite,

How pleasant to go to a friend on a visit!

I go to my friend, we walk on the grass,

And the hours and moments like minutes pass.

Stevie Smith.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Friday Poetry: Emily Dickinson

Hello and Happy Friday!

I have gone for another Emily Dickinson poem this week, I promise I’m not obsessed, I think…

I like this poem because it has an air of mystery because you don’t actually know what the thing that Emily Dickinson has lost is. It also shows that to us it might be important but to somebody else it might be a trivial thing.

I Lost a World – the Other Day!

I lost a World – the other day!

Has Anybody found?

You’ll know it by the Row of Stars

Around its forehead bound.

A Rich man – might not notice it –

Yet – to my frugal Eye,

Of more Esteem than Ducats –

Oh find it – Sir – for me!

Emily Dickinson

Happy weekend everyone.

Friday Poetry: Emily Dickinson

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone has some good books planned for the weekend. I have spent a bit of time in the garden today and it was wonderful to see the bees in the flowers which led to me choosing this poem. Sadly our pond has no frogs though.

Bee! I’m Expecting You!

Bee! I’m expecting you!

Was saying Yesterday

To somebody you know

That you were due –

The Frogs got Home last Week –

Are settled, and at work –

Birds, mostly back –

The Clover warm and thick –

You’ll get my Letter by

The seventeenth; Reply

Or better, be with me –

Yours, Fly.

Emily Dickinson

Have a good weekend!

Friday Poetry: Vita Sackville-West

Happy Friday my fellow Book Dragons!

I hope everyone has some good books planned for the weekend. My chosen poem this week is by Vita Sackville-West who was part of the Bloomsbury Group.

Full Moon

She was wearing coral taffeta trousers

Someone had brought her from Isfahan,

And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms,

And the coral-hafted feather fan,

But she ran down a Kentish lane in the moonlight,

And skipped in the pool of moon as she ran.

She cared not a rap for all the big planets,

For Betelgeuse or Aldebaran,

And all the big planets cared nothing for her,

That small impertinent charlatan,

But she climbed on a Kentish stile in the moonlight,

And laughed at the sky through the sticks of her fan.

Vita Sackville-West

Friday Poetry: Anon

Hello

I have been reading and thoroughly enjoying Alison’s Weir’s Katherine of Aragon The True Queen, so I have a chosen a related poem.

This nursery rhyme is popularly believed to be related to the execution of Anne Boleyn.

Oranges and Lemons

Oranges and lemons,

Say the bells of St Clement’s.

You owe me five farthings,

Say the bells of St Martin’s.

When will you pay me?

Say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,

Say the bells of Shoreditch.

When will that be?

Say the bells of Stepney.

I’m sure I don’t know,

Says the great bell of Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

Chip chop, chip chop, the last man is dead.

Anon

Happy Friday

Friday Poetry: A. E. Housman

Hello!

You will have noticed that this isn’t Friday but I will be honest I forgot the days of the week and forgot it was Friday yesterday. However, I have decided I will post the poem anyway because everything is so random at the moment anyway.

I have chosen another Housman poem I think this will now be my fourth, I feel I might be getting another favourite poet! This poem is all about not being able to go back but to live in the present instead.

Into my Heart an air that Kills

Into my heart an air that kills

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.

Friday Poetry: Jeff Phelps

Well we have reached another Friday, it really doesn’t feel like a Friday but I do have some teaching over Skype this morning to keep me busy.

The sun has been shining here over the last few days and I will be honest I have been enjoying the odd glass of something nice, so this week’s poem reflects that. It also reflects my OCD with regarding washing up, everything has to be washed in a certain order and only one item in the bowl at a time. Anybody else also have this issue with washing up? It drives my family and friends crazy, hence why most things go in the dishwasher in our house.

Wine Glasses

Wine glasses must be washed first

in water hot as hands can bear, untainted

by the everyday of cutlery and plates.

Rub out the deep red lines, invert them,

stems-up to stand like potters’ kilns.

I think I had forgotten what a poem was

till you reminded me how the world can be made

to scintillate on a single wavelength.

Now I hold the glass up to the light.

The taut brittle arc of its bowl is faith

in the impossible. I rub a moist finger round the rim,

hear a kind of gathering, a resonance that’s neither

glass nor air, but a new place between.

Its high sound fills the kitchen like a prayer bell.

Jeff Phelps

Friday Poetry: W. H. Davies

Happy Good Friday everyone, I hope you all have some yummy hot cross buns.

I will be honest it is only my blog that is keeping me on track of what day it is.

The poem I have chosen is all about the arrival of the cuckoos which usually happens mid April.

The Woods and Banks

The woods and banks of England now,

Late coppered with dead leaves and old,

Have made the early violets grow,

And bulge with knots of primrose gold.

Hear how the blackbird flutes away,

Whose music scorns to sleep at night:

Hear how the cuckoo shouts all day

For echoes – to the world’s delight:

Hullo, you imp of wonder, you –

Where are you now, cuckoo? Cuckoo?

W. H. Davies

Happy reading.

Friday Poetry: Rachel Rooney

Hello my wonderful Book Dragons!

Whilst reading poetry this week I discovered a wonderful woman who I wanted to learn more about. My chosen poem is about Helen Keller who in 1904 became the first deaf and blind person to graduate from university. Keller learned her first word ‘water’ when her hand was held under the water pump and the letters for ‘water’ were spelt on her other palm. This poem is about that moment.

Everyone, look up this amazing woman her story is inspiring.

First Word (After Helen Keller)

This thing she’s feeling

is nameless cold

that can’t be held.

This unheard sound

its unseen lettering

drums her outstretched skin

like fingertips.

This thing is spilling over.

This thing she’s feeling

in her other palm

is nameless warm.

This unseen sound

its unheard lettering

drums her outstretched skin

like drops of rain.

This thing is spelling water.

Rachel Rooney

Happy Friday.