An old woman blows out 78 candles on her birthday cake, but one refuses to go out, no matter how hard she blows. It burns with a blue flame and whispers a name she hasn’t heard in 40 years. Your poem is her conversation with that candle. What does she decide to do: let it … Read more
Beryl Goes to School: Chapter Five One Hundred Lines and a Rock Bun Chapter One : Chapter Two : Chapter Three : Chapter Four After tea, Beryl sat down in the common room to write out her lines. I must not be mean to girls on the nature walk. First she wrote “I” all the way down … Read more
How to Teach Writing (This Was Written by AI) Choose by opposition. Not this. But that. Favour the formula. The best thing about X is Y. The best thing about Y is Z. Mistake contrast for thought. Prefer closure to discovery. Wear the names of thought without thought. Mulling. Sifting. Pondering. Cogitating. Count to three. … Read more
The editorial team at The Seasloth is delighted—nay, thrilled beyond the bounds of modest restraint—to bring its readers yet another groundbreaking exclusive. In this dazzling new edition, we present poetry and prose from some of the finest voices writing today, alongside an exclusive interview with C. Langley Dunwood, who breaks her long silence to address, … Read more
Beryl Goes to School Chapter Four: Beryl and Marigold Chapter One : Chapter Two : Chapter Three Of course, the next day did not start out well, even though Beryl straightened her bed properly, put away her clothes tidily, ate all her breakfast porridge, and swallowed the cod liver oil without complaining. The first class … Read more
It might be summer and a steamy mid-July, but things had been humming at Wayward St. Etheldreda’s Academy, and head of school Tim Endibel was feeling rather pleased. Of course, he was tired and very much looking forward to vacation, but although he said it himself, things had gone well. Co-head Midge Hazelbrow was now … Read more
Metrophobia You have to do it. Teach poetry. It’s on the syllabus. Required. Everyone hates it. What did you think I meant— fear of public transit? As if that weren’t reasonable. Paris, Washington, D.C.— you’ve seen the crowds: tourists and politicians, sometimes both. No—this is worse. Verse played up, popped its tether, gone feral: contagious, … Read more
Beryl Goes to School Chapter Three: Beryl Meets Top Girl Beryl Goes to School: Chapter One: On the Train Beryl Goes to School: Chapter Two: A Most Dreadful Day Chapter Three: Beryl meets Top Girl “Beryl,” a sharp voice broke into Beryl’s daydream, “why have you not eaten your tapioca pudding?” Beryl looked down at … Read more
A Match Made in Mechanical Heaven LinkedIn Meets the Lyric McPoem On the Ever-Evolving Tapestry of Becoming: A Testament That’s a great question, the river said. You are right, said the moon. Let me reframe that. It’s important to recognise you have always been a scalable, resilient, rich tapestry. Unfold your wings, allow the ache … Read more
Beryl Goes to School Chapter Two Click to read Chapter One A Most Dreadful Day Beryl sat down by the trout stream and cried. She missed her mummy, and she missed her daddy, and she missed her pet sheep, Dolly. She had no friend, and everyone was quite horrid. She could not stop the hot … Read more
I Will Arise Now I will arise now, or not. There is no hurry. I can stroll, stare at the nasturtiums growing in the concrete planters on the sidewalk, or wander mid-morning, reading the backs of cans, comparing, at length, the astonishing quantities of salt in tomato and lentil soup. Once there was the evening … Read more
Are you worried about being indecisive? Have you ever tried to read a poem and then found yourself mystified by bits of French or references to Sisyphus or Keats or some dead Greek myth or whatnot that you never learned? And it makes you feel excluded before you’ve even started on the poem? Well, no … Read more
Every generation deserves its own impossible school story. This one was written almost thirty years ago but is set in the 1950s — the decade when Lauden McVey, best known for her golden age crime fiction, published her first boarding school novel for girls under the pen name Darcy Andrews. Beryl had hoped to arrive … Read more
W3 by Nancy Richy via The Skeptics Kaddish. Take a look. Join in. And while I’m at it – – a silly ditty – a Quadrille – in exactly 44 words on the topic of myth for dVerse Poets’ Pub Myths Young Einstein passed math with style, And Marie Antoinette, meanwhile – Never said this: “Let … Read more
This week I’ve been arguing with Donald Hall, reveling in Letters from Iceland (W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice), and reading some rather good poetry. Hall died in 2018, so my debate with him has been entirely academic. My focus was his famous essay ‘Poetry and Ambition’, in which Hall introduced the term ‘McPoem’ to describe … Read more