Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, published immediately post-war in 1945, elegises landscape and lifestyle. The outsider Charles Ryder is drawn towards the bohemian Sebastian Flyte and his house and family. Using flashback, post-war austerity throws the vanished colour of Brideshead into relief. Revisiting Brideshead on active service, Flyte sees that its farm ‘had been marked forContinue reading “Et in arcadia ego – Luke Wright’s What I Learned from Johnny Bevan”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Rachael Boast’s Void Studies
I am honoured to have been asked to review the titles shortlisted for the 2016 TS Eliot Prize by the TS Eliot Foundation. A few weeks ago, I started reviewing a title a week, and these reviews have been appearing in the foundation’s newsletters. Click here if you wish to subscribe to these. The Foundation’s website currentlyContinue reading “Rachael Boast’s Void Studies”
I’m a Bitch – David Kinloch’s Some Women
This morning, I’m thrilled to fill the guest blogger slot on Anthony Wilson’s poetry blog, where I write about the Renaissance poet, Aemilia Lanyer. Her indignant refusal to roll over and take it like a woman changed me, and changed my reading habits. Lanyer’s subversive, ironic, yet reverent engagement with her Biblical sources reminds me ofContinue reading “I’m a Bitch – David Kinloch’s Some Women”
Blue Dress: Ryan Van Winkle’s The Good Dark
Ryan Van Winkle’s second collection, The Good Dark, opens in style with The Duke in Pines.
Katy Evans-Bush’s Forgive the Language: Essays on Poets and Poetry
It’s a thrill to see posts from Baroque in Hackney collected together in book form. It’s a validation of blogging and, flicking through these essays on Negative Capability, Dylan Thomas, plagiarism and poetic metre, Katy’s significant contribution to British and international poetry becomes clear.
Helena Nelson’s How (Not) to Get your Poetry Published
You’ve never seen a soul playing football. You never read about it. You are unaware of its rules, or even of the fact that it’s a team game. Yet, intent upon a professional career, you travel to Old Trafford, White Hart Lane, or some such, and wait at the front door ready to impress the manager withContinue reading “Helena Nelson’s How (Not) to Get your Poetry Published”
Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors: Tamar Yoseloff’s A Formula For Night: New and Selected Poems
Damien Hirst, ‘For the Love of God’, 2007, platinum, diamonds and human teeth, 171, 127, 190 mm (photo credit: Ilona Gaynor) The optical illusions at work in St Peter’s Basilica aim, unbelievably, to create a more intimate space. When a building’s the size of an aircraft hanger, the roof’s going to feel pretty high, so the threeContinue reading “Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors: Tamar Yoseloff’s A Formula For Night: New and Selected Poems”
Claudia Rankine’s Citizen
My final review for the TS Eliot Prize is now live on the Poety Book Society’s Poetry Portal – and what a book to finish with. As I left work one bright September evening, Front Row snapped into life, mid segment, as I turned the ignition. With no prior knowledge of either book or author, I heard Claudia RankineContinue reading “Claudia Rankine’s Citizen”
Rebecca Perry’s Beauty / Beauty
The Poetry Book Society have posted another of my reviews on their Poetry Portal, this time on Rebecca Perry’s Beauty / Beauty. Beauty / Beauty meditates upon some of life’s binary oppositions with deft clarity and simplicity – all of which is achieved with sympathetic technique and memorable language. Check out the collection on the BloodaxeContinue reading “Rebecca Perry’s Beauty / Beauty”
The Poetry Trust
Have you visited the Poetry Trust’s website recently? In my opinion, it showcases the democratic internationalism of the Trust’s vision and I only hope that something is being done to save and relocate some of these exceptional resources for future generations of readers and writers. If you’re involved in education – whether of the young,Continue reading “The Poetry Trust”