I wanted to return to Pomes Flixus and considered ways of opening the book (again). This is one response to the question, which I realise I haven’t yet proposed… From 1970 or thereabouts, Maurice Lemaître’s Toujours à l’avant garde de l’avant garde jusqu’au paradis et au delà.
Tag Archives: MW Bewick
I am not here
When we first moved to Wivenhoe, Essex, over six years ago now, my compass still pointed towards London. The railway was a thin chain, a line of landscape that linked our new home with our old home in the city. A combination of changing jobs, Network Rail’s interminable bus replacement services, and a general diggingContinue reading “I am not here”
Elliptical Movements – Billy Mills review of Scarecrow
I’ve been rewarded this year by being introduced to the poetry of Billy Mills, whose recent The City Itself is one of those occasional collections that can make you question why you write the way you write. It simplifies the complex, and finds huge space for exploration in what is seemingly simple. It’s about place,Continue reading “Elliptical Movements – Billy Mills review of Scarecrow”
Preview: Scarecrow is coming
I love a proper big art project – one that starts as isolated moments and then starts to coalesce, condense into some serious thinking, serious time and serious work. I’ve just completed one. About four years ago I went to a Poetry Wivenhoe evening and was encouraged to go away and write something, andContinue reading “Preview: Scarecrow is coming”
An early January edit
January is a month for new writing, completing older projects, and walking around Essex’s wilder places.
100-Word Fiction: ‘On Guernica’
The faces in anguish. The screams of a horse. The door of no exit. The eye of the blistered sun low as a ceiling bulb. The gasping bull that looks away. A glove for a hand – palm deep-lined. The screeching bird. The heavy mortal stagger of feet, the trampled flowers, the limp child in aContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘On Guernica’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘1 September 2015’
1 September 2015. Global share prices tumble as visa checks are waived and bodies are washed up on a continent’s beaches. Dead. The stations and sports halls are full of refugees. We are learning new names and new vocabulary. There was no vocabulary for this. Old words are not sufficient. Very old words might justContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘1 September 2015’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Cancer Party’
It was the week she discovered Bob Kaufman and read a poem of his (now forgotten) while the rain streaked across the window of her suburban flat. It was the week the cancer first looked ineluctably fatal. The news streamed in dolefully: news of supporters and opponents, the disaffected and the quietly optimistic, as ifContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Cancer Party’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Erawan’
NB: Geographies are distorted by culture, politics, capitalism etc. Spatial relations are always relative / in flux. Wikipedia entry says the shrine is located next to the (more significant landmark?) Grand Hyatt hotel – also the Skytrain station (tourist advice). ALSO: ‘The hotel’s construction was delayed by a series of mishaps, including cost overruns, injuriesContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Erawan’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Perseid’
I am looking at the sky despite the clouds. I will not miss these moments. It is just me and my eyes. I have no telescope, no binoculars. I am looking at the sky, the night sky, through a mist of light pollution, into the occluded dark, here, so late and so early, standing aloneContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Perseid’”