In a recent email, a friend said he’d “been enjoying” the recent posts on the blog. “But you haven’t liked them!” I retorted. Of course that raised the subject of what the like button signifies to each of us and why some of the posts here are more popular than others. 
Continue reading “what’s not to like?”
Category: narrators
poems & pomegranates
It’s been a while since I talked on the blog about the narrator/writer dichotomy, but it’s still a subject that interests me.
Recently, I started writing a column for The Woman Writer (the magazine of the SWWJ – the Society of Women Writers and Journalists). In the article “I”: an invitation to poetry, published in the April issue, I talked about how first-person, present-tense poetry can encourage the reader to empathise and participate rather than simply observe.
Although it’s not a long article, it brings together a number of my thoughts on the subject, so I’ll include it in its entirety here:
Continue reading “poems & pomegranates”
distorsions*
Glass
Seen through old sash windows, a crinkle of brickwork
and ripple of wrought iron remind me that glass is liquid:
cool and viscous, it creeps earthwards through the centuries.
This thought occurred to me when looking out at the buildings in the picture. Then, of course, I felt obliged to go and research whether glass really is liquid or whether that’s just an old wives’ tale. The idea is discussed at some length and technicality in this paper.
I think the conclusion is that, although glass can be considered a super-cooled liquid, the variations in thickness of old glass are nothing to do with the pull of gravity. Still, I was trying to write poetry not science, so I’m leaving it as it is and will blame any inaccuracy on my fallible narrator.
*oops: I really did spell it that way and publish it without checking. I’ll blame the fallible writer for that; and the fact that it’d be distorsión in Spanish.
the next big thing: “hope street”
For her own contribution, Karin talked about Mord in Switzerland, an anthology of crime stories from around Switzerland; you can read about it on her stories47277 blog in the post The Next Big Thing.
As part of the project, I, too, will invite five fellow-writers to write their own TNBT page and will link to them on this page below my own answers. As Karin put it: “It’s like a chain letter, only that no bad luck will come out of your not participating ;-)”
So, here are my answers about an up-coming poetry book:
Continue reading “the next big thing: “hope street””
from a railway carriage
In case anyone who read Boxing Day (posted on December 26th) might be envious of me enjoying glorious sunshine on an exotic beach, let me clarify that it was an old poem, and, as is usually the case, I am not the narrator.
To clarify further, this is a photo taken from the window of a train I was travelling on yesterday:
Continue reading “from a railway carriage”
don't confuse the narrator 