Today I'm going to draft the poem from a few updates ago, tentatively titled Church Going, after the Larkin poem. I thought it might interest somebody out there for me to talk through this editing process. There is a persistent lie we tell young writers, that poems are spontaneous and magical, and most of us... Continue Reading →
Church Going,
The dark night is a lie which floats around me a denial of the lamps and cars and houses, but true to my soul, which can no longer know what will could possibly light them my feet find ground as firm as ever, except the odd puddle from six days' drizzle and my lips press... Continue Reading →
On Rebecca Watts’ poem Spiritus Mundi Reloaded
In my last update I mentioned that I had tried comparing Rupi Kaur to other poets and was unable to. That was an update I promised myself was going to focus on Rebecca Watts – my first draft was a comparison of the two, but I abandoned it. After finishing Rebecca Watts' The Met Office... Continue Reading →
A Tactics Ogre Metanarrative
After saving the world from my adoptive sister's dead father – who in traveling through the gates of hell was transformed into an evil ogre wizard – and placing her on the throne, where she rightfully belongs, putting an end to decades of war and creating a peace said to last 1000 years, I was... Continue Reading →
On Sylvia Plath and the lack of recent updates
Should I tell you what I know about Sylvia Plath's suicide? I watched her do it, but I couldn't say a word. It was always going to happen in 1963. She gave herself half a chance at another decade, but despite this I do believe she intended to die. She knew that she was due... Continue Reading →
Revisiting authenticity with Wilfred Owen
This week I've been reading the poetry of Wilfred Owen, and caught myself re-thinking what I've said about authenticity in poetry on this site. Owen was an englishman remembered as one of the greatest war poets of the first world war. The main body of his work was produced between 1917, when he was first... Continue Reading →
The Great Rupi
In the age of Instagram, it's hard not to think of Jimmy Gatz. That young man doctored his entire life around the appearance of success because he thought it would give him a leg up towards actual success, towards his actual ambitions. As Gatsby he decided he had come from a rich family, attended the... Continue Reading →
Keaton Henson and the Art of Authenticity
A friend of mine recently gave me Keaton Henson's collection of poems, Idiot Verse, as a gift. I had to fight my way through to finish it in the last couple days, and have been struggling to find the appeal. No, I know the appeal. I'm struggling to find a way to describe it. Henson... Continue Reading →
