Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Friday, 24 April 2020

Pandemic: foxes and sunsets and suicide

›
A couple of months ago, I saw a cat run across the garden with a pigeon in its mouth. I’ve never seen a domestic cat hunt such a big bir...
Sunday, 7 January 2018

Learning to swim in Lahore; Muriel Spark and Kjersti Skomsvold

›
I recently reviewed Isambard Wilkinson's Travels in a Dervish Cloak , this passage stays in my mind: Pakistani novelists of  a c...
Friday, 18 November 2016

The world is fucked and books are all we have

›
The world is fucked and books are all we have. When things are tough, I look for illumination in poetry, nothing has helped, but then a few...
2 comments:
Monday, 28 March 2016

Tiny joys

›
The world seems abominable at the moment , but I smiled this Easter weekend. I saw two rainbows yesterday, one in the afternoon, a portion,...
3 comments:
Wednesday, 24 September 2014

Five days after the morning after

›
It seems like months ago we voted to stay or go - I had a tear in the polling booth, it felt like destiny was weighing on you -  a real cha...
2 comments:
Wednesday, 27 August 2014

The Istanbul Review: Issue 5

›
Delighted that the gorgeous The Istanbul Review Issue 5 is now on sale in Looking Glass Books, a wonderful indie book store in Edinburgh. ...
2 comments:
Saturday, 7 June 2014

Six years on, still getting lovely feedback on novel

›
Almost six  years on, lovely to get feedback from readers of The State of Me : this from Merry Speece in Ohio: I just finished reading ...
5 comments:
Thursday, 8 August 2013

In love with Robert Hass

›
I hurt my fucking back - again - this time taking laundry from the basket (the tiniest 'wrong' move can fell you, but you can't...
Sunday, 4 August 2013

Hell of writing/not writing

›
I love this quote from American poet Robert Hass: "It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is h...
1 comment:
Monday, 20 May 2013

Louis MacNeice

›
I recently read that the poet Louis MacNeice had been sent by the BBC to India  in 1947 to report on Partition. I knew his name, of course,...
4 comments:
Wednesday, 1 May 2013

The power of narrative (for good and ill)

›
I am increasingly interested in why we read stories, I think it might make you a better writer if you understand the seduction of narrativ...
5 comments:
Monday, 28 January 2013

Creativity, pain & an owl hooting

›
In the current New Statesman, TS Eliot Prize-shortlisted poet Julia Copus - who suffers from endometriosis - makes the point that there is ...
2 comments:
Saturday, 5 May 2012

Tagore & Virginia

›
One of my friends is big on Tagore and when I told him I'm into birds now he mentioned the tiny poems Stray Birds . I dipped in - real...
Thursday, 19 April 2012

Goodbye, Penguin Book of English Verse!

›
This is why Kindles are good: there is no glue. I hate throwing out my uni books, but this was getting ridiculous.
2 comments:
Friday, 9 March 2012

Orange longlist & a poem

›
Congratulations to all those longlisted for this year's Orange Prize, the only one I've read is Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, whi...
3 comments:
Saturday, 15 October 2011

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, a film by Lian Lunson

›
I came across this 2005 Leonard Cohen tribute  film   via Open Culture . What a gem, an absolute gem. The filmmaker is here. Wonderful ...
2 comments:
Monday, 12 September 2011

Crafty Green Poet reviews TSoM

›
My tooth which seemed better has been louping since Saturday night so off I go back to dental hosp. Meanwhile, a review of The State of Me ...
2 comments:
Sunday, 14 August 2011

A Guatemalan poem

›
I love this gem by Guatemalan Maya Indian poet Humberto Ak'abal, translated into Scots by James Roberston. The collection is called Dru...
2 comments:
Thursday, 11 August 2011

Edwin Morgan poem

›
I came across this Edwin Morgan poem in the comments thread of an article on the riots by James Meek in LRB. Glasgow 5 March 1971 With a...
Wednesday, 16 March 2011

'Untitled', a poem by Angela Carter

›
Two unpublished poems by Angela Carter in last weekend's Observer . The one I have copied below is not online, only in actual newspape...
6 comments: