Throughout February, the following haiku, by John Stevenson, has been periodically catching my eye on my desk at work, as it’s featured on this year’s Haiku Calendar, from Snapshot Press: canned peaches the darkest corner of the cellar Verbless haiku or senryu, without any action for the reader to imagine, are often rather cerebral and… Continue reading On a haiku by John Stevenson
On Burton and Jarman
Last weekend, we had a Richard Burton fest in our household: two perhaps lesser-known films in his cinematic oeuvre: The Medusa Touch (1978) and Villain (1971). In the former he plays a telekinetic whose powers he cannot stop from causing disasters on vast scales. He looked terrible – by then drink had rendered his face… Continue reading On Burton and Jarman
On Richard Murphy’s Sailing to an Island
Although I remember skimming through it years ago, and being generally aware of Richard Murphy and his links with Hughes and Plath (I remember a piece by Murphy in Poetry Ireland Review 30 years ago or so about his friendship with them), Roethke, and the next generation, of Heaney, Longley and Mahon, Sailing to an Island isn’t a book I… Continue reading On Richard Murphy’s Sailing to an Island
Skedaddling
In his paean to Claire Everett’s ‘editors’ choice’ haiku in the September 2018 issue of The Heron’s Nest, esteemed American haiku poet John Stevenson makes special reference to Claire’s use of the word ‘skedaddles’ and states that he’s not seen it in a haiku before. It certainly can’t be common, and I can’t definitively claim… Continue reading Skedaddling
Eyewear publishing winter party
I’ll be reading a short, eight to 10 minute set this Sunday afternoon, at the Eyewear Publishing winter party, The Windmill, Blenheim Gardens, Brixton, SW2 5BZ. The doors open at 2pm.
On Running Again
My Sunday running route for the last few months has changed to one that loops round to Sandown Park and Esher, then up to Hinchley Wood, Long Ditton and back to Thames Ditton. The pleasure of the route lies principally in the fact that it takes in three hills, two of them long enough to provide… Continue reading On Running Again
Writing the Past
So many of my poems are concerned with the past that I sometimes wonder whether I will ever be able to write well about the present, about contemporary life. But then I say to myself that the past refracts upon the present, and the future, so I needn’t fret. I do fixate on how the… Continue reading Writing the Past
Reviews in Presence #62
Below are the last reviews I wrote in my stint as Reviews Editor (and Co-Editor) for Presence. Stuart Quine, Sour Pickle Alba Publishing, PO Box 266, Uxbridge, UB9 5NX, UK; £12/€14/$16; ISBN 9781910185957; http://www.albapublishing.com Hamish Ironside, Three Blue Beans in a Blue Bladder Iron Press, 5 Marden Terrace, Cullercoats, North Shields, NE30 4PD, UK; £6;… Continue reading Reviews in Presence #62
Christmas poem #4
HALF-TIME, BOXING DAY While the not-so-super Superhoops are tucking into Lucozade and oranges, the crush in the gents’ is the usual bastard. Nominally banned, language and smoking give it large behind the stand. On the pitch, some wrapped-up kid – ‘our matchday mascot’ – loves his really crap kickabout with Jude the Cat. Next is… Continue reading Christmas poem #4
Christmas poem #3
MANTRA The number 213 and the redness of its rear are all I see of the disappearing bus, before another one slips the ropes of the hill, heaving with posh kids from a different school, with stripier blazers and caps. I find half a seat upstairs, right at the back in the smokiest part, next… Continue reading Christmas poem #3
