I missed this last week, though some of you in school may have spotted it among the RSS feeds on Edmodo.
I think it’s worth a more prominent showing, partly as a reminder of how wonderful the Guardian ‘poem of the week’ is as an example of close literary reading (it’s good for students to read good examples of writing about literature – I’ve little time for the idea that has taken hold in some quarters that somehow reading the views of others inhibits or pollutes personal response), together with often fascinating discussion in the comments section, but also because the poem has quite a strong personal resonance. As a former Anglican who visited Walsingham many times before converting (somewhat reluctantly) to Catholicism, that sense of loss and spiritual longing is one that I have often felt mirrored in my own experience.
Heald English 