the last of…

So here’s Iain Sinclair, talking about London while wandering in Haggerston Park and Bethnal Green: He’s sadder here than I’ve ever seen him. He talks in the film about how London has changed into something he can no longer engage with – that writers in general can engage with – in any particularly constructive way.Continue reading “the last of…”

Travelling to Avebury

It’s World Poetry Day today. I wanted to post something by Louis Zukofsky – just been having a great time reading his collected shorter poems – but his son is very protective of his copyrights, so there’s very little of him available online. Instead, two other offerings. First of all, one of his poetic colleaguesContinue reading “Travelling to Avebury”

A poem for Kenneth Rexroth

Yes, there is always poetry lending meaning from language to us, this world. Yes, there is art and here is the world, and us; here before each poem, then after changed and unchanged. I think of lava, how Kenneth Rexroth described it – here and no more. Burning into stone as if fluid vision canContinue reading “A poem for Kenneth Rexroth”

William Blake understood as a West London Shopping Mall

On Sunday, I went to the William Blake 1809 exhibition at Tate Britain, reviewed here in The Guardian. It’s absolutely fascinating; it restages his first and only public display of prints and paintings, and sets them in a context which helps explain their abysmal critical reception. I wanted to do a video review of it,Continue reading “William Blake understood as a West London Shopping Mall”

Dispatches from a moving time

Well, the process of moving continues – silence for the last week or so as I’ve been deep in final moving and decorations (with hugely invaluable help and support from H) before the new carpets go in at Allumination Central. More busy-ness continues – furniture ordering, sorting estate agents, etc, before the upcoming move toContinue reading “Dispatches from a moving time”

Lovecraft, Olson and ‘The Mayan Letters’

Well, it’s been a fascinating morning of pondering Lovecraft’s roots in Ovid. Don’t believe me? Well, I’m not going to go into detail here – still working out exactly what I think – but in brief I think the link builds on Ovid’s status as the great poet of transformation in ‘Metamorphosis’, and the chroniclerContinue reading “Lovecraft, Olson and ‘The Mayan Letters’”

Pound 1, Brancusi 0

Just spent a lovely weekend in Venice, with H; great food, great boozing, lovely company (of course), much architectural beauty, and also of course much time spent looking at art and (as ever) following Ezra Pound around. This year’s Ezra stalking was particularly successful; our hotel was just round the corner from his and OlgaContinue reading “Pound 1, Brancusi 0”