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‘Would anyone care to join me / in flicking a few pebbles in the direction / of teachers who are fond of asking the question: / “What is the poet trying to say?” // as if Thomas Hardy and Emily Dickinson / had struggled but ultimately failed in their efforts – / inarticulate wretches thatContinue reading “The trouble with poetry – how we get teaching it wrong”

Buy Troy Town from Arrowhead Press Looking at the turnout for the support act’s set, I’m reminded of a wispy comb-over. As ever, the consumer knows best and art and culture are, after all, just another commodity. I hate being late for things – perhaps through a fear of missing out, perhaps because I justContinue reading “New Dawn Fades – Matt Merritt’s Making the Most of the Light”

Buy Leaving Fingerprints from Amazon On Berlin’s Bernauer Straße the wheat around The Chapel of Reconciliation was tanning in the summer sun – each blade a memorial to the 171 people who lost their lives attempting to cross from East to West. The death strip wheat field brings ‘all flesh is grass‘ from the book of Isaiah toContinue reading “Dancing in the Dhark – Imtiaz Dharker’s Leaving Fingerprints”

Buy Rain from Faber and Faber A friend of mine who was born and bred in Reading, a place whose Oracle centre he regards as Dante‘s vision of hell, got a job on the Aberdeen Press and Journal. Needless to say, he had a few adjustments to make in terms of language and culture butContinue reading “Braiding a windowpane – Don Paterson’s Rain”

Buy Phantom Noise from Bloodaxe Books Today, the Nigerien rower, Hamadou Djibo Issaka, dubbed ‘the sculling sloth’ by the UK’s press, rowed the 2000 metre course a full 28 seconds slower than in his previous race, finishing last. He has been learning to row for the past three months, starting in a wooden fishing boat.Continue reading “An Olympic Struggle – Brian Turner’s Phantom Noise”

Buy The Cinder Path from Faber and Faber On Andrew Motion‘s last night as Poet Laureate he decided to return to his old school to speak and read from his recently released collection, The Cinder Path. A teacher there had single-handedly discovered and nurtured his interest in poetry. Motion found the laureateship nigh on impossible;Continue reading “This scepter’d isle: Andrew Motion’s The Cinder Path”

Buy The Malarkey from Amazon I’ll never forget waiting for that notorious cutpurses’ cash cow: Rome’s number 64 bus. Locals yacked nonchalantly into mobiles, or strutted their bella figura but, as the doors hissed open, even the most infirm of nonni were transformed into a dervish of elbows and heels. Roman Holiday? Mean Streets, moreContinue reading “A Watery Grave: Helen Dunmore’s The Malarkey”

There was always something cringeworthy about family snaps. As Philip Larkin says in Lines On A Young Lady’s Photograph Album ‘But o, photography! as no art is, / Faithful and disappointing! that records / Dull days as dull, and hold-it smiles as frauds’. Larkin’s not quite got it. Yes, the camera recorded the dull dayContinue reading “Instagram for the soul – Sam Willetts’ New Light for the Old Dark”

Buy The Private Parts of Girls from Salt In Sally Potter’s The Tango Lesson, a character called Sally pitches to a firing squad of film producers by a pool straight out of Hockney. Their response is the stuff of nightmares (or an Orange Wednesdays advert): yes, yes, yes but will it make any money?? SallyContinue reading “In space no one can hear you scream – Sophie Mayer’s The Private Parts of Girls”

Buy The Waste Land app for iPad I usually buy the new phone, or laptop first and then find out what I can use it for but when I saw The Waste Land App, I bought the iPad just to run it on. Yes, it’s that good. Eliot has had his hooks into me fromContinue reading “How I became an Eliot addict – The Waste Land – Faber and Faber – Touch Press”