Yesterday, I took part in a local literary festival. Originally, I had been invited to read a short set of poetry during one of the sessions; then one of the speakers was ill so she dropped out, and, at the last minute, I was asked to step in and give a talk. And I do mean the last minute. I got a text message on Friday afternoon to give me advance warning that my help might be needed: maybe I could give a short talk on poetry or translation? I duly rustled up some old notes on the latter and thought about changes I’d need to make so it would suit the audience.
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Tag: creative writing
bars, boards & blocks
It sees to be a long time since I wrote something new. In early 2020, when the pandemic first started, I wrote a number of new poems, inspired by new lockdown habits and experiences. Then my friend Lucía asked for my assistance with prayer writing and the Modern Pagan Prayers project was started.
There are three books in the series, now – a total of nearly 100 prayers, most of them completely new, with just a handful repurposed from poems I had written previously. There were also a handful of pieces that were rejected as they were too much like poetry and too little like prayer. An average of around two new pieces a week is definitely not something to be ashamed of.
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signs of life and death
It seems as if August has flown by with little to show for itself. I try to update this blog at the weekend, at least once every week, but I’ve been very remiss recently and two complete weekends have passed with no word from me. If the updates happen at the weekend, and I’ve missed two weekends, that’s actually three weeks without an update. Nothing since the first of August.
Strangely, there have already been more visitors to the site this month than in any month since May 2020. Perhaps I should continue not to post.
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knobs, knockers and bosses
I could just as easily have called this post “door furniture and architectural details”, “wall anchors, pattress plates and more”, “green men and bears” or a dozen other titles, but I’ll admit it: I’m childish enough to have taken pleasure rounding up a selection of local photos that I can post together under the title “knobs, knockers and bosses”.
In fact, as I’ve been researching what this set of photos show, I’ve learned that there are precious few bosses among them. Perhaps we’d better get them out of the way immediately, with this over-sized lego brick that I came across by the race course months ago. I have no idea what it was for, but presumably whatever its purpose, they really didn’t want people to sit on it.
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reductio ad absurdum
The other day, I posted a differently cropped version of the photo above on Instagram with the caption:
Blossom above my head;
clouds in the sky.
Since then, I’ve been niggling and tweaking and wondering whether and how I can turn that into something a little more poetic.
Continue reading “reductio ad absurdum”
don't confuse the narrator 