Poet Laureate Simon Armitage writes:
"If I were called in / To construct a religion / I should make use of water." When Philip Larkin wrote those lines he understood the essential life-giving properties of water but probably couldn't have predicted its impending commodification or civilisation's failure to distribute it equally and constantly across its populations. As a 'sacred' substance, and for its significance to our contemporary world, it would seem ripe for the attentions of contemporary poetry.
"If I were called in / To construct a religion / I should make use of water." When Philip Larkin wrote those lines he understood the essential life-giving properties of water but probably couldn't have predicted its impending commodification or civilisation's failure to distribute it equally and constantly across its populations. As a 'sacred' substance, and for its significance to our contemporary world, it would seem ripe for the attentions of contemporary poetry.
