It's National Poetry Day today - a day for all poets, poetry fans and poetry organisations to enjoy and take part in.
For more details on National Poetry Day including events in the London aread visit their website.
The suggested theme for National Poetry Day 2013 is water water everywhere - here's John Betjeman's poem Return to Ealing with a mention of the River Brent, written before the construction of the Great West Road:
Return, return to Ealing,
Worn poet of the farm!
Regain your boyhood feeling
Of uninvaded calm!
For there the leafy avenues
Of lime and chestnut mix'd
Do widely wind, by art designed,
The costly houses 'twixt.
No early morning tractors
The thrush and blackbird drown,
No nuclear reactors
Bulge huge below the down,
No youth upon his motor-bike
His lust for power fulfil
With dentist'd drill intent to kill
The silence of the hills.
In Ealing on a Sunday
Bell-haunted quiet falls,
In Ealing on a Monday
'Milk-o!' the milkman calls;
No lorries grind in bottom gear
Up steep and narrow lanes,
Nor constant here offend the ear
Low-flying aeroplanes.
Return, return to Ealing,
Worn poet of the farm!
Regain your boyhood feeling
Of uninvaded calm!
Where smoothly glides the bicycle
And softly flows the Brent
And a gentle gale from Perivale
Sends up the hayfield scent.
Also worth mentioning more information and another Betjeman poem about the River Brent featured on London's lost rivers http://www.londonslostrivers.com/river-brent.html
