Tag: poetry

It was this blog, of course! It is on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis ‘Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy’.

December 20, 2025

It was this blog, of course! How to write on a life, whose archival raw material is ‘marked by two conspicuous gaps – the relative absence of material regarding Constantine’s erotic life and his views of Muslim Egyptians’.[1] This is a blog on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine … More It was this blog, of course! It is on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis ‘Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy’.

An Addendum to my first version of this: My friend Ann says I Recited ‘The Collar’

December 12, 2025

The Folk Hall at New Earswick. My first go at this prompt related to a vague memory of the recitation of a speech from Measure for Measure (see it at this link). Since then, my friend, Ann, who has been my friend since we both went to Wooldale Primary School, has reminded me of much … More An Addendum to my first version of this: My friend Ann says I Recited ‘The Collar’

Ian McEwan states in his novel’s title a concern with ‘What We Can Know’. Clearly, this concern with the nature and limits of knowledge is central to the conduct of history including predictive history, biography and the study of the art or even counterfactual forms of those things. However, the epigram of this novel, taken from the biographer Richard Holmes, implies that biography embodies ‘human truths poised between fact and fiction’ themselves which requires the question of ‘what we can know’ but also goes on to ask ‘what we can believe, and finally what we can love’.

December 11, 2025

Ian McEwan states in his novel’s title a concern with What We Can Know. Clearly, this concern with the nature and limits of knowledge is central to the conduct of history including predictive history, biography and the study of the art or even counterfactual forms of those things. However, the epigram of this novel, taken … More Ian McEwan states in his novel’s title a concern with ‘What We Can Know’. Clearly, this concern with the nature and limits of knowledge is central to the conduct of history including predictive history, biography and the study of the art or even counterfactual forms of those things. However, the epigram of this novel, taken from the biographer Richard Holmes, implies that biography embodies ‘human truths poised between fact and fiction’ themselves which requires the question of ‘what we can know’ but also goes on to ask ‘what we can believe, and finally what we can love’.

The fever of seeking recognition is at least one of the characteristics in the origin of the social, or aristocratic, vampire in literary myth. We could all do less fame-seeking! A case study based on John William Polidori’s life and writing, OR …

December 5, 2025

The fever of seeking recognition is at least one of the characteristics in the origin of the social, or aristocratic, vampire in literary myth. We could all do fame-seeking! A case study based on John William Polidori’s life and writing, [OR], ‘He watched him; and the very impossibility of forming an idea of the character … More The fever of seeking recognition is at least one of the characteristics in the origin of the social, or aristocratic, vampire in literary myth. We could all do less fame-seeking! A case study based on John William Polidori’s life and writing, OR …

This is a blog on Murdoch’s Queer Poetry. Is it a layer of Queer History or the record of  a Psychosocial Anomaly? It is based on Iris Murdoch (ed. Anne Rowe, Miles Leeson, Rachel Hirschler & Frances White) [2025] ‘Poems from an Attic: Selected Poems 1936 – 1995’

November 19, 2025

One line in a poem of complicated love between women, written to Brigid Brophy, by Iris Murdoch reads: ‘Don’t  make of sex a basic category’. To her journal she committed the following reflection about herself: ‘It’s no good being a female queer, one must be a male one’: This is a blog on Murdoch’s Queer … More This is a blog on Murdoch’s Queer Poetry. Is it a layer of Queer History or the record of  a Psychosocial Anomaly? It is based on Iris Murdoch (ed. Anne Rowe, Miles Leeson, Rachel Hirschler & Frances White) [2025] ‘Poems from an Attic: Selected Poems 1936 – 1995’

To the memory of John Burnside and in dear friendship for Joanne, I contemplate. the poet’s posthumous lines: ‘and everything they loved / is erstwhile, in the empire of forgetting: / …’

November 6, 2025

To the memory of John Burnside and in dear friendship for Joanne, I contemplate. the poet’s posthumous lines: ‘and everything they loved / is erstwhile, in the empire of forgetting: /  …’ [*] There is nothing that once were the objects of our lives that can be remembered in their entirety, hence the fact that … More To the memory of John Burnside and in dear friendship for Joanne, I contemplate. the poet’s posthumous lines: ‘and everything they loved / is erstwhile, in the empire of forgetting: / …’

‘The departed are yet to arrive / … / but the roads are all laid out: /’ There is no ideal time to pay more attention to the details past than the death that inevitably defines a ‘life’ and picks out its salient meaning. This is a blog referring to a first reading of Simon Armitage (2025) ‘New Cemetery’.

September 30, 2025

‘The departed are yet to arrive / … / but the roads are all laid out: /’ [1] There is no ideal time to pay more attention to the details past than the death that inevitably defines a ‘life’ and picks out its salient meaning. This is a blog referring to a first reading of … More ‘The departed are yet to arrive / … / but the roads are all laid out: /’ There is no ideal time to pay more attention to the details past than the death that inevitably defines a ‘life’ and picks out its salient meaning. This is a blog referring to a first reading of Simon Armitage (2025) ‘New Cemetery’.

Having is less than Being and Being is less than Doing!

September 27, 2025

I have always felt the words of the New Testament contained the truths by which we could and perhaps ought to live – and continue to respect them whilst being in a state of absolute non-belief in the existence of a god, or gods. Recently as I thought about this question I again came across … More Having is less than Being and Being is less than Doing!

It brings ‘a tear of joy’ finding truth in fiction and authenticity in mere performance. Here is an example: Liz Duffy Adams’ ‘Born with Teeth’; Reflections after reading the text.

August 30, 2025

It brings ‘a tear of joy’ finding truth in fiction and authenticity in mere performance. Here is an example: Liz Duffy Adams’ Born with Teeth; Reflections after reading the text. In an earlier blog post at this link, I  said that I would revisit Liz Duffy Adams play Born with Teeth once I had chance … More It brings ‘a tear of joy’ finding truth in fiction and authenticity in mere performance. Here is an example: Liz Duffy Adams’ ‘Born with Teeth’; Reflections after reading the text.

Somehow twilight at evening draws us to favour it. Why? After all it promises us nothing but the night, unless we hope to make the next day the first of the ‘rest of our life’!

August 18, 2025

Somehow twilight at evening draws us to favour it. Why? After all it promises us nothing but the night, unless we hope to make the next day the first of the ‘rest of our life’! When I was a student at University College London, I used to find myself walking through Russell Square to and … More Somehow twilight at evening draws us to favour it. Why? After all it promises us nothing but the night, unless we hope to make the next day the first of the ‘rest of our life’!