I was taken aback to read the following headline on the BBC:
Millions mark UN hand-washing day.
In fact, if you click through, you’ll find it is not, as I first suspected, a day of non-handwashing, to save the world’s limited soap and water resources, but a “campaign and pledge to embrace more hygienic practices by the simple act of washing [your] hands.”
So, wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing today, whether working or celebrating, just make sure your hands are (UN)clean!
As may be apparent from the blog title – and even moreso if you have read the about this blog page – the subject of the narrator is one I feel quite strongly about.
I write a lot of first person poetry and creative non-fiction. I also believe that real life can provide raw material for my writing.
However, despite what many people think, this doesn’t mean that I write about my life.
Continue reading “the narrator in poetry I”
I’ve been thinking again about translating poetry, partly because it’s a pet subject of mine, and partly because I’m hoping to run a course on the subject next year and have been preparing the course spec.
One of the recurring questions is “when does a translation cease to be a translation and become a derivative work?”.
Continue reading “on translating poetry”
It’s not just the bread and cake shops that confuse me in Spain. There’s a-whole-nother area of shop difficulties associated with chemist shops and drug stores.
In the UK we have chemists. Inside a chemist shop you’ll find the pharmacy counter where you can buy your medicines – or, hopefully, in the near future get your prescription made up free of charge. You’ll also usually find a photographic department, perhaps an optician, even, maybe, a wine-making area. Continue reading “de tiendas II”
On the subject of shops, I talked about the bombonería – the chocolate shop – and the fact that our local bar is called the Bombonera although it’s neither chocolate box pretty, nor does it sell anything sweet, focusing rather, as do most normal Spanish bars, on fried food such as calamares and pieces of pig.
The whole bomb… lexical area is, perhaps unsurprisingly, one which deserves due respect. Our butane gas is delivered in big orange bottles called bombonas. (Remember that bombón is a chocolate or similar sweet.) Continue reading “language bombs”
don't confuse the narrator 