Tag: poetry

Do I write what people actually want to read? The issue here is not whether writing can be called writing only because it is read by someone, even if only by yourself, but whether writing appeals to what those people,or person, think that they want.

September 16, 2026

There is, of course, an important and inalienable link being writing and reading, for nothing that is written isn’t from its inception being read, even if only by its writer who assesses as they proceed that the writing is satisfactory to them or its intended audience. The standards of reading judgement vary of course and … More Do I write what people actually want to read? The issue here is not whether writing can be called writing only because it is read by someone, even if only by yourself, but whether writing appeals to what those people,or person, think that they want.

‘Making time to fill with self-care / Leaves no time still to stand and stare’: Help me W.H. Davies!

September 15, 2026

Making time to fill with self-care Leaves no time still to stand and stare: Help me W.H. Davies! I have no great love for W.H. Davies’ poem Leisure, but it feels relevant to this question, opening up the terrible gap in time that cultural ideologies create around words so that a question like our prompt … More ‘Making time to fill with self-care / Leaves no time still to stand and stare’: Help me W.H. Davies!

The best books show that erasure is not an option but seeing all events as a part of a dynamic process to which we change our response, or even find atonemt for, is. August 17th Day Four in Edinburgh : At the Book Festival thinking about Two Queer books about transition and our response to it (Kae Tempest & Dean Atta), and accepting a New Cemetery with Simon Armitage.

August 19, 2026

The best books show that erasure is not an option but seeing all events as a part of a dynamic process to which we change our response, or even find atonemt for, is. August 17th Day Four in Edinburgh : At the Book Festival thinking about Two Queer books about transition and our response to … More The best books show that erasure is not an option but seeing all events as a part of a dynamic process to which we change our response, or even find atonemt for, is. August 17th Day Four in Edinburgh : At the Book Festival thinking about Two Queer books about transition and our response to it (Kae Tempest & Dean Atta), and accepting a New Cemetery with Simon Armitage.

As I read Jem Calder’s celebrated novel ‘I Want You to Be Happy’, Ella Fitzgerald’s best-known lyric sung through as if it has lived with me forever. This is really a blog on that novel.

July 28, 2026

As I read Jem Calder’s celebrated novel ‘I Want You to Be Happy’, Ella Fitzgerald’s best-known lyric sung through as if it has lived with me forever. This is really a blog on that novel. To be honest, I was reading Jem Calder’s novel because is aid I would because he is appearing at the Edinburgh … More As I read Jem Calder’s celebrated novel ‘I Want You to Be Happy’, Ella Fitzgerald’s best-known lyric sung through as if it has lived with me forever. This is really a blog on that novel.

I think I will choose as ‘a quote that perfectly describes my life’ Robert Browning’s ‘Feeling for foot-hold through a blank profound, …’

July 27, 2026

Since nothing is certain, we aren’t likely, any of us to get hold of truth and keep hold of it. The sands shift and what looks a solid foothold in the mountainside crumbles when asked to bear the weight of a person already in doubt of it, falling more from lack of any faith that … More I think I will choose as ‘a quote that perfectly describes my life’ Robert Browning’s ‘Feeling for foot-hold through a blank profound, …’

How about dining with Polyphemus, the Cyclops – the Euripides version

July 17, 2026

Going to see The Odyssey today to see how Odysseus fared when he visited the dining room of Polyphemus, the Cyclops. Here is Euripides’ take on it, in the words of Odysseus [ΟΔΥΣΣΕΥΣ], speaking to the Chorus on one of the few extant ‘Satyr’ plays – which played together with a fare of a tragic … More How about dining with Polyphemus, the Cyclops – the Euripides version

The best advice is to be aware of and distrust the impulse, or the advice of others, that you be always in control of what you say and do, for it too often means that you surrender yourself to the controlling ideologies of the status quo, which is, often as not, embodied by that which demands your self-control. I think I learned this from Adam Nicolson’s characterisation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his ‘The Making of Poetry’ (2019)

June 22, 2026

The best advice is to be aware of and distrust the impulse, or the advice of others, that you be always in control of what you say and do, for it too often means that you surrender yourself to the controlling ideologies of the status quo, which is, often as not, embodied by that which … More The best advice is to be aware of and distrust the impulse, or the advice of others, that you be always in control of what you say and do, for it too often means that you surrender yourself to the controlling ideologies of the status quo, which is, often as not, embodied by that which demands your self-control. I think I learned this from Adam Nicolson’s characterisation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his ‘The Making of Poetry’ (2019)

‘crush, and snap its pale / Wrist’: Thought and image disturbed by thought. More on Kane Benjamin Crookes’ poems

May 18, 2026

‘crush, and snap its pale / Wrist’: Thought and image disturbed by thought. More on Kane Benjamin Crookes’ poems A little while ago I wrote naively about Kane Benjamin Crookes first volume Blooming Us (see the blog at this link). Promising then to return to it and his next volume at the time, I will … More ‘crush, and snap its pale / Wrist’: Thought and image disturbed by thought. More on Kane Benjamin Crookes’ poems

I know what ‘gives pleasure’ can never be simple. Let’s consider how we react to the effect of words working together to evoke vision, sound, sensation and tangled meanings.

May 13, 2026

I met a poet in my favourite left bookshop yesterday, The People’s Bookshop in Durham City, and bought his book, Blooming Us. I was searching for more books by Bryher and he knew, as might be expected in someone intensely interested in the poetic movement called Imagism, of Bryher’s sometime lover, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). I … More I know what ‘gives pleasure’ can never be simple. Let’s consider how we react to the effect of words working together to evoke vision, sound, sensation and tangled meanings.

‘boustrophedon, one of the loveliest words in the English language, …’. If only the aims of life were not so ‘chopped up’, end-stopped and linear, we might realise that ‘in our minds’ are ‘only sinuous furrows of thought’. This blog reflects on Yann Martel’s novel, ‘Son of Nobody’.

May 1, 2026

‘boustrophedon, one of the loveliest words in the English language, …’. If only the aims of life were not so ‘chopped up’, end-stopped and linear, we might realise that ‘in our minds’ are ‘only sinuous furrows of thought’. [1] This blog reflects on Yann Martel’s novel, ‘Son of Nobody’. Of course, writing is about giving … More ‘boustrophedon, one of the loveliest words in the English language, …’. If only the aims of life were not so ‘chopped up’, end-stopped and linear, we might realise that ‘in our minds’ are ‘only sinuous furrows of thought’. This blog reflects on Yann Martel’s novel, ‘Son of Nobody’.

‘The world was all before them, where to choose?’ or ‘The earth is all before me … I cannot miss my way’. Looking for direction: how to use a quotation about using a quotation for guidance, and the perils of the freedom to choose!

April 22, 2026

In the seventeenth century educated persons kept commonplace books where things they heard or read could be stored for use or as a momento of the use they had already served, and might, if remembered in this way, serve again. Sometimes they consisted of practical guides to a task, like a recipe, although it was … More ‘The world was all before them, where to choose?’ or ‘The earth is all before me … I cannot miss my way’. Looking for direction: how to use a quotation about using a quotation for guidance, and the perils of the freedom to choose!

Cashing in on ‘Thy sweet love remembered’:Some preliminary thoughts on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 before some historical reflection on its use in queer literary culture in the twentieth century

April 19, 2026

Sonnet 29 is used to provide the title, and is quoted in full as its message, by a non-binary character in prison named by inmates as ‘Mona’ (after Mona Lisa), of John Herbert’s Fortune and Men’s Eyes, an important if not a very good queer play, and in 1971 a minor film, no longer easily … More Cashing in on ‘Thy sweet love remembered’:Some preliminary thoughts on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 before some historical reflection on its use in queer literary culture in the twentieth century