Perhaps it is my southern hemisphere background, but I find it hard not to feel gloomy in the cold, dark, dreary months of northern winter.
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A Paean to Penteract Press
In early spring a book arrived that I had been eagerly anticipating. Atomic Masquerade by Clara Etherin did not disappoint. Witty, exuberant, layered and innovative, this visual poetry collection is full of delights, from brooding palimpsest portrayals of Dracula and Frankenstein to the vivid pair of asemic sonnets “Heaven & Hell” – written in collaboration with AI – with which the book concludes.
Continue readingFrom Fibs to Fractals: exploring mathematical forms in poetry
A few years ago I was contacted out of the blue by Michelle Moloney King, the founder of Beir Bua Press. She had read some of my blog posts on mathematical forms in poetry, and offered to publish them as a book. The result was From Fibs to Fractals: exploring mathematical forms in poetry, which was released in autumn 2021, with stunning cover art by Moloney King herself.
Following the closure of Beir Bua Press in 2023 the book is no longer available in print, so I am now making it freely available in downloadable form. I’ve posted the Introduction below, followed by pdf versions of each of the chapters (including an additional chapter on geometrical forms). Enjoy!
Continue readingThe Poetry of Equations
A few months ago, I had a meltdown. Societal and political discourse – not only where I live, but everywhere – has become so troubled, so vitriolic, so angry, so polarised and so polarising that I became overwhelmed by words. It felt, and still feels, as though everyone is shouting but no one is listening. No one takes the time to ask thoughtful, constructive questions, to examine assumptions or consider nuances. Humility and compassion seem to be absent.
Continue readingA Little Light Relief
Poetry can be bleak. Grief, despair, loss, heartbreak and pain are timeless and universal themes that continue to be explored by contemporary writers, in poems that resonate with unflinching emotional intensity. To write, or to read, such poetry can be cathartic and healing.
Continue readingListening
Bounded by the urban conglomerations of Amsterdam, Leiden, Rotterdam and Utrecht, the Groene Hart (Green Heart) of the Netherlands is a flat, relatively sparsely populated landscape of fields, woods, canals, lakes and villages. Nature is managed here with care and skill: in spring and summer the verges are bright with wildflowers, and there’s an abundance of birdlife. It’s a beautiful area for walking and cycling, or for trying out some of the numerous water sports on offer.
Continue readingThe space within the nutshell
I was fortunate, when studying English Literature at A-Level, to have an inspirational teacher. Lynne Ruscoe was only a few years older than we were, full of energy and enthusiasm, with an engaging smile and a lively sense of humour. We read Chaucer and John Donne, John Keats and Gerald Manley Hopkins, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, and – of course – Shakespeare. Hamlet was one of our set texts and I vividly remember the emotional impact the play had on me, especially these lines from Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy:
Continue readingThe constrained poetry of sport
My mother taught me to swim before I could walk. This was sensible. We had a swimming pool in the garden, unfenced of course, a sun-glittered temptation to a small child crawling over spiky grass on a hot day.
Swimming, tennis, netball, rowing, squash… sport has always been a part of my life. It taught me to play by the rules, absorb the pressures of competition, survive the grim lessons of humiliation and defeat. Through practice and repetition I gradually developed muscle memory, so that movement and coordination became ever more instinctive. I learned to relish the sheer joy of cleaving through water like a dolphin, the exhilaration of a hard-fought squash match, the triumphant exhaustion of pushing my body to its limits.
Continue readingAudience as Constraint
When I write poetry, for whom am I writing? Who is my intended audience?
This is a question I have only recently started asking myself. Perhaps it is different for novelists, or storywriters, or memoirists. Perhaps it is different if you seek to earn a living from your writing; but my answer, at least until a few weeks ago, would have been in the first instance I write for myself. I need to translate thoughts, feelings, memories, impressions, imaginings, experiences, observations, into words and structures, driven partly, I think, by a compulsion to generate some sort of order and meaning out of chaos and confusion.
It continues to be a pleasant surprise when others read my poetry and relate to it in some way. My prime motivation for writing, however, is not a desire to be read.
Continue readingOf Sky and Earth and Other Things
In our corner of southeast England, we were treated last week to a spectacular display of nacreous clouds. I had occasionally observed nacreous clouds during the years I lived in Aberdeen in Scotland, but this was the first time I’ve seen them so far south. Their iridescence provided a glow of joy in what has been a bleak time.
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