The lines above come from Stephen Romer’s title poem in his 2008 collection Yellow Studio. This poetry book (Oxford Poetry Series ISBN978 1 90303985 4)I purchased having read some of his critical writings in the TLS (or was it the LRB?) Getting to understand a new poet inevitably takes time and I find that I have reached the point where actually I want to reassess my favourites; Auden, MacNeice, Yeats and Mahon). However, my interest in French Poetry remains strong and Romer is perhaps the leading translator. Incidentally, Romer keeps reminding me of the corresponding poetry and translations from German by Michael Hofmann. Here is a clip finding Romer reading at Worcester College, Oxford in 2019 about the warmth of the South,the approach of Spring, Air BnB and other matters.
Perusing the collection my eye was caught by the poems about returning to Paris.:-
Returning here
under the cold blue
the rue des Saules
is absurdly tender
with its pink house
on the corner
and the château des Brouillards
with its ruined vineyard
and secret trees
still a world on its own
(For more information on the misty castle opposite Renoir’s house see
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_des_Brouillards )
Rue des Saules
Another section of Yellow Studio deals with the poets relaxation and remembering a friend/lover recently lost ;an elegy conceived in the garden and about the house. It is called Pottering About.
any sign of neglect or decay
weighs on my conscience
when you were always the one
somewhere at work among the birdsong
and the appleboughs, the place marked
by a stupendous oath
as the Allen Scythe choked
or where the odd chainsaw
was hurled into the undergrowth
and I dreaming on
among my books
in the yellow attic room.
Here is Stephen Romer in more sombre mood reading at Trinity College, Cambridge in 2018
penwithlit 