I just pulled one of my grandmother’s poetry books from the shelf. There aren’t that many of them, but they are all inscribed “Midsummer Day” and were gifts from her husband on her birthday. This particular book – Poems by Thomas Hood – is dated exactly 100 years ago.
My favourite Hood poem is The Bridge of Sighs, but that’s too long to post here, so I’ll settle for one that’s appropriate to the time as well as the date:
Continue reading “midsummer night”
Just a couple of hours to the east of us, in Madrid, the trees are already blossoming:
In fact, the blossoms are already shedding petals, which reminds me of Omar Khayyam:
And look a thousand Blossoms with the day
Woke – and a thousand scatter’d into clay
After a frustrating meeting yesterday, I called in unannounced at the office where I worked briefly a couple of years ago. I was surprised to be greeted by one ex-colleague with “I was going to call you!” We had never been close while I was there, and our only contact had been through work, but her next sentence explained, “I bought one of your books.”
Not wanting to get my hopes up, I asked which one. (There is only one that is really mine, as the others are translations. I’m pleased to have my name on them, but it isn’t quite the same.)
“Pompas!”
Continue reading “small delights”
For reasons that may become apparent at a later date, I was looking at the wikipedia page about digital publishing.
Specifically, I was looking at the ‘comparison of e-books with printed books‘.
As well as the poetry course at Swanwick, I was also asked to lead the two showcase events. These were essentially poetry readarounds – a rather more restrained atmosphere than a normal open mike, but along those lines.
There were other showcase sessions on at the same time, in fiction and non-fiction, but we had a good turn out and it looked as if there would be far more people reading than there was time for.
Continue reading “listening and reading”
don't confuse the narrator 