Tag: dailyprompt

Kathleen Jamie chose to visit the Alaskan Tundra and help with an archaeological dig. Would I?

April 17, 2024

What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why? I would not visit the Tundra in Alaska. I have not Jamie’s  grit or the steel-edged beauty of her imagination. But in her I can see a reflection of it. The feelings it raises are complicated. Of course, worthwhile experience always is. I … More Kathleen Jamie chose to visit the Alaskan Tundra and help with an archaeological dig. Would I?

Join me and James Joyce at Burton’s Restaurant,  Duke Street, Dublin. Let your gorge rise.

April 14, 2024

What is your favorite restaurant? The Duke still exists on Duke Street, as does Davy Byrne’s eatery, but I do not know if The Duke in which we know Joyce dined regularly was also the ‘Burton restaurant’ referred to Episode  8 of James Joyce’s Ulysses. That episode is usually known as the Laestrygonians, since it … More Join me and James Joyce at Burton’s Restaurant,  Duke Street, Dublin. Let your gorge rise.

In lieu of an answer and avoiding the personal: a short story with too much telling and not enough showing, perhaps.

April 13, 2024

‘When I think it through, this wasn’t a random encounter’. James’ thinking had a tendency to be spoken aloud and that could be embarrassing. He checked around him. No-one seems to have heard. The boy with ear-plugs, who was sitting next to him on the train, still nodded his head to the same beat, his … More In lieu of an answer and avoiding the personal: a short story with too much telling and not enough showing, perhaps.

Make morning not mourning my ritual now! Xxx Love to Geoff.

April 11, 2024

What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like? Posted on April 11, 2024 by stevendouglasblog Mishearing, of rituals of mourning I thought they queried, as if discerning Some loss was still raw in mind, too unkind In their ‘concern’. Will today again find My first hour, like a cymbal crashing sleep … More Make morning not mourning my ritual now! Xxx Love to Geoff.

When I was five … The problem of being 5 is that no one, and least of all one’s reflective elder self, can read what might have been there. This is dark fantasy, therefore.

April 7, 2024

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up? The problem of being 5 is that no one, and least of all one’s reflective elder self, can read what might have been there. This is dark fantasy, therefore. When I was five, the moon was green cream-cheese. Freud thought I … More When I was five … The problem of being 5 is that no one, and least of all one’s reflective elder self, can read what might have been there. This is dark fantasy, therefore.

To know someone or something is an illusion of the moment, to ‘understand’ is to accept that you must live in or amongst every facet of their very life or ‘spirit’.

April 4, 2024

What’s something most people don’t understand? Lots and lots of energy are expended on meanings and how they touch upon lives, or even bludgeon some peoples lives into submission, like the words that are taken to infer not only a meaning but also a social status, and these are legion. Queer was once such a … More To know someone or something is an illusion of the moment, to ‘understand’ is to accept that you must live in or amongst every facet of their very life or ‘spirit’.

Stevieism: a belief that though truth is a complicated thing, the duty to be open to it is ‘peremptory and absolute’.

April 3, 2024

If you could have something named after you, what would it be? I, the Stevie in question, was just about to start the process of registering my patent in this belief system when I realised yet again there is nothing new under the sun, and the best things have been said many times. The words … More Stevieism: a belief that though truth is a complicated thing, the duty to be open to it is ‘peremptory and absolute’.

‘… he stands, weak in the knees, a fake, a copy, a boy playing dress up… To be or not to be (what you would be or feel to be) depends on it’. The Pretendian in Tommy Orange’s ‘There There’.

April 2, 2024

What Tommy Orange actually writes about his character Orvil Red Feather in his 2018 novel There There is: ‘… he stands, weak in the knees, a fake, a copy, a boy playing dress up… It is important that he dress like an Indian, dance like an Indian, even if it is an act, even if … More ‘… he stands, weak in the knees, a fake, a copy, a boy playing dress up… To be or not to be (what you would be or feel to be) depends on it’. The Pretendian in Tommy Orange’s ‘There There’.

Can poets improve community? The example of Simon Armitage in ‘Blossomise’ is what NOT to do.

April 1, 2024

I have no standing in any community I suppose. I am the worst for it. What is it that prompts people to write poetry or to call themselves poets? Is that fervour for community improvement? Simon Armitage’s latest poetry ‘project’ in community politics is published in his 2024 volume Blossomise. I began to be concerned … More Can poets improve community? The example of Simon Armitage in ‘Blossomise’ is what NOT to do.

‘No-one is an island, entire to itself’, as John Donne might have preached, had he wished to touch the diversity of people.

March 28, 2024

As a preacher of sermons, one almost thinks that John Donne was as alive to the need to generate memorable phrases that would outlive knowledge of his work as to teach the religious lessons of human and spiritual concern. Written in 1624, possibly in response to an illness that nearly killed him, the devotional piece … More ‘No-one is an island, entire to itself’, as John Donne might have preached, had he wished to touch the diversity of people.