In the abundance

So the season of flu vaccines and soft play and parent’s evenings begins. My children have taken to their fluffy onesies. This weekend we had friends over for a roast dinner, with rainbow chard and a first crop of Jerusalem artichokes from our wet garden, and I wore my new cords. I’m back at Essex University as a Royal Literary Fellow again, two days a week, leaving the house when it’s still dark and Gruff waves goodbye from a glowing upstairs window. Pret porridge. The walk to the campus from Wivenhoe train station has been making me feel autumnal: grey skies; banks of fern turned to rose-gold; dark sloes; an egret in pale brown water; a flicker of yellow wagtail.

If you want to get into a similarly cosy mood, can I suggest you subscribe to MPT? Our new issue is at the printers as we speak, with this beautifully seasonal cover by Budapest illustrator Ilka Mészely.

Hungarian poetry is full of mists and cups of coffee, and the issue also contains tributes to Ted Hughes’ translations by Polly Clark, Zaffar Kunial and Tara Bergin, new versions by Mona Arshi and Chris McCabe, and some seasonal poems such as this beautiful haiku by Yasuaki Inoue, translated by Katrina Naomi:

In the abundance
of autumn a baby cries
like a giant fire