Poets

2013: Nobel Prize - Tomas Tranströmer (Design - (Hans Cogne)

In the year  Tomas Trastömer (1931-2015) won the Nobel Prize for literature Sweden issued this miniature sheet with its winter view.  The writer Andrew Brown describes his poetry as "Pure cold Swedish without the frills.  His descriptions of nature were as sparse and alive as a Japanese painting".  Indeed in later life he wrote Haiku in Swedish.  His works have been translated into 50 languages but in 1990 he suffered a stroke and lost the power of speech but continued to write poetry and play the piano with his left hand.  The Nobel Diploma is illustrated on the stamp and features notes from Schubert's Piano sonata in the blue and white of the Baltic where the poet grew up.  An explanation on the Philatelic Database can be seen here

1973: British Explorers (Design - Marjorie Seynor)

In contrast here is the dashing Sir Walter Raleigh, adventurer, explorer and poet and one of Queen Elizabeth's favourites until he married one of her ladies in waiting in secret and both were sent to the Tower of London.  Eventually released he regained Elizabeth's favour with a raid on the Spanish at Cadiz and was appointed governor of the Isle of Jersey in 1600

2019: Sir Walter Raleigh (Design - True North)

Jersey issued a set of stamps remembering this tenure.  The words "When we have wandered all our ways" is from his 'Epitaph on his owne death' written before his execution in 1618 on order of James I.  Raleigh is credited with bringing potatoes and tobacco to the British Isles following his travels to America.  In 1810 an obelisk (depicted on the stamp), was erected at Killua Castle in County Westmeath, Ireland, to mark the position where Raleigh planted some of the potatoes that he first imported.

1999: 250th Birth Anniversary Goethe

 

 

 "One ought every day at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see fine pictures and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words" Goethe

Sunday Stamps II theme this week is - Poets - for more verse makers - See It On A Postcard