Poem of the week: The Candle by Katherine Mansfield.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

Katherine Mansfield is rightly praised for her short stories. As a poet , however, she is virtually forgotten -- ignored even -- by the 20th century anthologists dedicated to the recovery and re-evaluation of neglected women poets. That's why I didn't expect much more than a literary curiosity when I picked up an elegant little 1930 edition of Poems by Katherine Mansfield in my local Amnesty bookshop.

Although the editor of this volume chose to remain anonymous, it seems to have been put together shortly after her death in 1923 (the date of the first edition) by her second husband, John Middleton Murry . The introduction refers to "a cottage on the shore of the Mediterranean where we lived in 1916". This was the Villa Pauline, where "for the whole of one week we made the practice of sitting together after supper at a very small table in the kitchen, and …