Busy weekend, busy autumn: I never got around to my traditional Halloween card, so here’s a blast from the past which has come to mind several times this week, so clearly she wants to make an appearance: Devil’s Night It was called Devil’s Night in the town where I lived That veiled night before Halloween,…
Category: poetry
BitchBuzz: Poetry and Protest
In a rush, but here’s a link to my column at BitchBuzz. Video to post later! While it’s faded a bit from the news, the Twitter joke trial (#twitterjoketrial) will have a lingering impact, not only for its outrageous assault on reason and human rights, but for its less immediate effects on humour. In case…
Byron by Way of East Cheam
Ah, Hancock! Not to mention Sid James and John Le Mesurier — and of course, script by Galton and Simpson. Busy busy busy — so much to get done this week before I run away. Somehow it will all get done, right? Wait — wasn’t the end of the semester supposed to be the end…
Between Work and Wit
That it is National Poetry Month has not escaped me, but I will not bother to mention it as 1) I am not a poet and 2) poets get far too much attention as it is and 3) there are far too many bad poets who would only find this encouragement to go on. They…
Alessandra Bava: In Quest of Poetry
I want to introduce you all to a very special friend, my jester nonpareil, Alessandra: Translator, scholar, poet, insightful reader, bon vivant, fount of sprezzatura. I can’t wait until we meet face to face at last when I visit Rome this summer (all too briefly!). She tells us about one of her favourite spots in…
Publication: Talking to Goddess
My sonnet for the goddess Kali makes another appearance, this time in a collection gathered by D’vorah Grenn of The Lilith Institute, called Talking to Goddess. The book is available in both print and digital formats, so you can decide which you need. I seem to recall that this came about in conjunction with the…
Review: Bright Star
I headed off to see Jane Campion’s latest film, Bright Star, with my intrepid fellow film reviewer, Peg, on Friday. Yes, it was another afternoon matinée, or what we have come to call the blue hair screening. It was also a particularly packed one, so there was nowhere to go to get away from the…
To Spring
O thou with dewy locks, who lookest downThro’ the clear windows of the morning, turnThine angel eyes upon our western isle,Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring! The hills tell each other, and the listeningValleys hear; all our longing eyes are turnedUp to thy bright pavilions: issue forth,And let thy holy feet visit…
Friday’s Forgotten Books: Shrieks at Midnight
Shrieks at Midnight: Macabre Poems, Eerie and HumorousSelected by Sara and John E. BrewtonDrawings by Ellen Raskin Here is my Rosetta Stone. Its garish orange cover depicts a ghoulishly grinning dinner party with a horse and skeleton at the feast. The feast? Human flesh. An angular woman with a tabby perched on her shoulder sends…
Podcast: The Flea
I forgot to mention the latest podcast, my reading of John Donne’s “The Flea” — always a fave. Donne was witty and inventive. He could write with heartfelt love — or lust — and in the end found a troubled sense of faith. Great stuff. Oh, look at the snow coming down — it’s not…