Dare To Be True

Author Wendy Cope
Publisher SPCK £16.99
Format hbk
ISBN 9780281092093

George Herbert is a major poet and a beloved person. This selection of his verse with some prose is a delightfully helpful introduction to his life, poems, faith and practice. Start here, if new to Herbert. If familiar, then trust a fellow poet, and enjoy the author’s appreciation of his wit, playfulness and great skill. He wrote verse as a teenager and was still writing it on his death as parish priest of Bemerton aged 39. He also wrote Latin poems and speeches when Public Orator, Cambridge. The English poems included are mostly from his later Christian years: original, sometimes straightforward, at times complex, often surprising. I had never read The Church-Porch but am glad it was chosen. He had a fondness for patterning his verse, according to the struggle or story unfolding. His endings can be superb and his bon mots memorable. He loved music and his verse confirms that.

Reviewed by JEREMY HARVEY

Poetry