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
We are all John Henry at the rock face battling with the steam-driven drill. I’m certain this is not an original thought, but it was new to me, so it felt that way. My introduction to John Henry was via Lonnie Donegan and his skiffle band on the radio as a child. You probably know … Read more
Tasting Notes She was reading the tasting notes on a turmeric jar – melted butter, jasmine, honey. She gazed at the Brown Betty teapot on the shelf and felt how lucky she was to live this life, grateful to be like the spice and the teapot: perfectly crafted and fragrant. With a tilt of the … Read more
Just a few pics from a recent trip. Here’s just one painting from the excellent exhibit at The Imperial War Museum Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art It’s by Ethel Léontine Gabain, who was commissioned by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, WAAC, in 1940. In spite of poor health, she travelled all over the … Read more
In 1943, George Stonier – using one of his many fishy pen names – wrote a gleeful burlesque about a trainload of male poets, both living and dead, journeying west out of Paddington station. He even skewered one of the very poets who then published the story in the journal he edited – Penguin New … Read more
Before the rain settled in for the weekend, we strolled over to the Central Park Conservatory Garden. The spring bulbs had already been dug up and were being given away last time we visited, and the new plantings weren’t in yet. Still, there was plenty to enjoy. The day was windy, and the foxgloves shivered … Read more
Coming through the security check at Heathrow recently, my carry-on bag triggered an alert and was pulled aside for inspection. At the request of the agent, I opened the bag. “Anything sharp?” she asked. I suddenly had a moment of dread that I had foolishly packed the Swiss Army knife in the side pocket. You … Read more
There are moments in literary culture when one senses, however faintly, that something is about to remain exactly as it is, but with unusual significance. Such a moment may now be upon us, as C. Langley Dunwood’s newest work, The Way Of It, enters consideration for the summer issue of The Seasloth Review. We are … Read more
I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you? Evening traffic homeward burns Swift and even on the turns. Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat Umberto Eco … Read more
“Sweet, bland commendations fall everywhere upon the scene; a universal, if somewhat lobotomized, accommodation reigns.” — Elizabeth Hardwick, 1959 One of my online routines is reading The Book Jotter each week. It’s a reliable way to keep up with what’s going on in the literary world, and if you care about books at all, I … Read more