Tag: writing

We need to defend ourselves, not peevishly from others, but from our ‘pet peeves’.

November 18, 2024

The Parade website contains a page (use that link to see it yourself) listing 75 potential ‘pet peeves’/ It defines this strange concept thus: “What is a “pet peeve”?  Dictionary.com defines a pet peeve as “a particular and often continual annoyance; personal bugbear: This train service is one of my pet peeves.” They tend to be behaviours … More We need to defend ourselves, not peevishly from others, but from our ‘pet peeves’.

… to sleep, / To Sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub! (‘Hamlet’, Act 3, Scene 1, lines 72 – 73) – and a prompt question!

November 15, 2024

What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can? … to sleep, / To Sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub! Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1, lines 72 – 73). [1] Iris Murdoch had long before written her wonderful novel based on the model of Hamlet, The Black Prince, … More … to sleep, / To Sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub! (‘Hamlet’, Act 3, Scene 1, lines 72 – 73) – and a prompt question!

‘Krapp’s  Last Podcast’, with apologies to Samuel Beckett.

November 12, 2024

What podcasts are you listening to? I desperately want to see this production A late evening in the future.THUS THE STAGE DIRECTION READS.To show you that the podcast to which IListen is probably that I’m making,Is probably that I hear in my playIn that future, where the true present lies. Krapp listens hard in the … More ‘Krapp’s  Last Podcast’, with apologies to Samuel Beckett.

Thoughts Before my Seventieth Birthday on Thursday 24th October 2024: An Acrostic: ‘Does Steven Fear Being Seventy‘

October 23, 2024

Thoughts Before my Seventieth Birthday on Thursday 24th October 2024: An Acrostic: ‘Does Steven Fear Being Seventy‘ Do larks ascending raise up such volumeOf song as the rich racket in his heartEach time Steven’s shaken with sonic boomSome tolling bells of time, seem to shock-start;Surprised, that such a sage and serious Timorous soul has reached an … More Thoughts Before my Seventieth Birthday on Thursday 24th October 2024: An Acrostic: ‘Does Steven Fear Being Seventy‘

And, as for our destination; ‘there ‘is a place’ but that’s ‘my own / somewhere far from your knowing’. This is a blog concerning Danez Smith (2024) ‘Bluff’.

October 19, 2024

In Danez’s Smith’s latest collection, Bluff, one way of reading the course of history lies in the poem made from footnotes within a longer poem, rondo:‘freedom was a door into a bigger cage & when they couldn’t shackle the necks anymore, their metal met the mind, they chained time, chained the money, chained the dreams … More And, as for our destination; ‘there ‘is a place’ but that’s ‘my own / somewhere far from your knowing’. This is a blog concerning Danez Smith (2024) ‘Bluff’.

The living deadness of the static ‘I’ infects our pride in self.

October 14, 2024

Joseph Addison Anyone who attempts this question will soon get caught in a trap, for the first word of their answer will be their downfall: ‘I am most proud of …….’, they start and then describe a quality of their personality or appearance in the world, or perhaps some past action undertaken that they feel … More The living deadness of the static ‘I’ infects our pride in self.

Forward Poetry Prize fills the stage with meaning, truth, beauty and not a little fun.

October 11, 2024

The Forward Poetry Prize is probably the most prodigious of prizes for a working poet and I have followed the short list for best collection with joy , mounting interest and some intense feeling generated by superb works of which I could not predict the winner (see my blog at this link) for I enjoyed … More Forward Poetry Prize fills the stage with meaning, truth, beauty and not a little fun.

‘how dare I love you here in the evidence of evil’: some thoughts about ‘Sioux Falls’ in Danez Smith (2024) ‘Bluff’.

October 7, 2024

‘how dare I love you here in the evidence of evil’: some thoughts about Sioux Falls in Danez Smith (2024: page 81) Bluff London, Chatto & Windus. This blog is a preliminary in a mini-project to prepare myself to hear Danez Smith reading from Bluff at the London Literary Festival at The Southbank Centre at 3.15 … More ‘how dare I love you here in the evidence of evil’: some thoughts about ‘Sioux Falls’ in Danez Smith (2024) ‘Bluff’.

‘They flee from me that sometime did me seek’ : Abandonment is a colossally mistaken feeling.

October 6, 2024

Sometimes, it seems that all away do runSometimes, it seems that all away do runand I alone from them do stalk, feeling colossal in my rightness, though aloneperhaps forever – turning in my mindbeing abandoned as gifts held aloftto send me elsewhere – to another sphereof dominion, some place in which I’llstill reign, again held … More ‘They flee from me that sometime did me seek’ : Abandonment is a colossally mistaken feeling.

Finding the expression you want of the ‘wonder at sheer being’ when the man you love comes to bed in his ‘pijamas de ciervos’. Reflecting on a moment from Garth Greenwell’s (2024) ‘Small Rain’.

September 27, 2024

Finding the expression you want of the ‘wonder at sheer being’ when the man you love comes to bed in his ‘pijamas de ciervos‘. Reflecting on a moment from Garth Greenwell’s (2024) Small Rain. In the picture above various retailers appropriate expressions of joy in a young man in order to sell deer pyjamas, or … More Finding the expression you want of the ‘wonder at sheer being’ when the man you love comes to bed in his ‘pijamas de ciervos’. Reflecting on a moment from Garth Greenwell’s (2024) ‘Small Rain’.

Get used to feelings, including our fears, that occur in time and embrace them whilst within the flow of time itself – in the varying heartbeat of a poet’s verse.

September 25, 2024

In my blog on Victoria Chang, I spoke of her use of largely regular iambic pentameter lines of verse in Section II of her new volume With My Back To The World, in an elegy or obit called Today, and based on the Date Paintings of On Kawara. Do schools teach metre and basic metrical … More Get used to feelings, including our fears, that occur in time and embrace them whilst within the flow of time itself – in the varying heartbeat of a poet’s verse.

Agnes must have miscalculated’: The math that we get wrong in art, perhaps deliberately. This is a blog on Victoria Chang (2024) ‘With My Back To the World’

September 24, 2024

‘Agnes must have miscalculated’:[1]  The math that we get wrong in art, perhaps deliberately. This is a blog on Victoria Chang (2024) With My Back To the World London, Corsair Poetry. Ekphrasis is an exercise in written words, used in poetry since Ancient times, to describe visual art in a way that tests whether words … More Agnes must have miscalculated’: The math that we get wrong in art, perhaps deliberately. This is a blog on Victoria Chang (2024) ‘With My Back To the World’