21 Thursday Nov 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
I’m in the mood for poetry today – so why not some Emily Dickinson? Emily is one of a surprising number of poets in my literary pantheon… and I call it surprising because I don’t write poetry, unless it is by accident. Then again, I read it, and I’ve always wished I knew how apply to prose the compact effectiveness of it… Continue reading
01 Thursday Mar 2018
This is not the post I had in mind for today – but we’re having a true snowfall for the fist time in… oh, I don’t know: years, I rather believe.
It started last night, just as I drove home – which was, if you ask me, absolutely perfect, as far as sentimental fallacy goes – and it’s been snowing through the whole night, and still snowing cats and dogs. Past beautiful, that’s what it is. Continue reading
16 Thursday Apr 2015
Posted in Books, Scribbling
Tags
Emily Dickinson, joseph conrad, Josephine Tey, Robert Bolt, Rodney Bolt, Ros Barber, Steven Runciman, Writer's Envy
Not necessarily my favourite books… well, some of them, yes – but for the rest… Let’s say, seven books that, for one reason or another, I can dream of having written myself.
1. Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim. Yes, yes, I know. But it’s a matter of power, depth, beauty and intensity… Continue reading
13 Tuesday Jan 2015
Posted in Books
Did you know that Emily Dickinson liked to write poems on envelopes? Not just on the back of the odd stray envelope – as one might do occasionally, when an idea strikes and no notebook is at hand. No: Emily did it in a curious and deliberate way, on torn or cut pieces of envelopes…
These paper pieces survive among her manuscripts, and are usually called “scraps”. Well, scholar Christine Burgin, who studied them in depth, gave them a new name, taken from one of Emily’s poems. She calls them the Gorgeous Nothings – in the Dickinson sense of the words: Nothing as a renovating force…
Here you can read a lovely article by Jen Bervin for Poetry Foundation, and see a few images of these very meaningful scraps. Fascinating stuff.
