Electronic Texts from Oxford Poetry

These pages house a sample of writing reproduced from previous issues of Oxford Poetry.

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Gunpowder, by Bernard O'Donoghue

Gunpowder, by Bernard O'Donoghue, was one of a pair of linked poems in Oxford Poetry VIII.3, the other being Romantic Love. The link between the two is a quotation from André Maurois: "We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - Gunpowder and Romantic Love." Gunpowder became the title poem of O'Donoghue's second collection, published by Chatto and Windus in 1995; Oxford Poetry X.3 includes an interview with the poet following the publication of his third, Here Nor There.

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