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…”
Category Archives: Poets
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’”
Those are pearls…
A post about poetry, as Nichola Deane over at Casket of Dreams is pointing the way to some roaringly good work (as well as writing with precise lyricism about Richard Hawley – do have to disagree with her about Dean Martin, tho’, there are few things more rock’n’roll than the careless swing of ‘Sway’, sungContinue reading “Those are pearls…”
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”
Pounding system
Well, I’ve come down from the weekend a little more but in the aftershock I have put my back out! So now I am hobbling round my flat like a little old lady – but as well as a lovely evening with H watching Venture Brothers et al, memories of the weekend are buoying meContinue reading “Pounding system”
Inspectors of the Heart
Apropos of nothing at all, here’s a poem I wrote a few years back. I was walking up St John’s Hill, past the hairdressers, when a siren cut through the moment and everything seemed to stop: Inspectors of the Heart A violent sound puts streets in shock – cars stop to let the siren past.Continue reading “Inspectors of the Heart”