An email with the subject line ‘escultura censurada’ caught my attention a couple of days ago and had me wondering whether the sculpture in question had been censured or censored.
Reading on, I think both verbs were appropriate.
Continue reading “censorship, censure and nonsense”
I had to make a quick visit to Madrid yesterday to sign some papers, but fled back to the village as quickly as I could. A considerable amount of the time I was in the city was actually spent travelling on the metro.
This poem dates from at least six years ago, but I remembered it as the air-conditioning on the metro doesn’t seem to have improved at all.
Fat Woman on the Metro
Her fan is silk and lace – a butterfly
whose coloured wings flick
and furl coquettishly. Crimplene
caresses curves as tenderly
as any lover’s hand; she wears pearls
of sweat at wrist and neck.
I made a concerted effort to send out some poetry competition entries earlier in the year. I haven’t had the success I’d have liked, but there have been a few short-listings and commendeds.
I received a copy of the adjudicator’s report for the Southport Writers’ Circle International Poetry Competition a few days ago and was delighted by the fact that my piece Neighbours (I) was commended for “its use of everyday language to express an horrific scene.” (The fact that it’s called Neighbours (I) might reasonably lead you to think there are other neighbours. There are, and they are mostly quite nasty, too.)
Continue reading “results round-up”
castillos en el aire – ilusiones lisonjeras con poco o ningún fundamento
I wonder how many Spaniards realise that as well as building castles in the air, English speakers also build castles in Spain.
Perhaps more to the point, I wonder why we do.
Brewer tells me that
[…] air-castles were called by the French Châteaux d’Espagne because Spain has no châteaux.
I wonder who told him that yarn.
Continue reading “‘a tower to the sun’”
don't confuse the narrator 