The uses of poetry
These days poetry can be found anywhere and is given many uses. Today the BBC reports a passenger complaining in verse to Norwegian Airlines and getting a verse response.
I can’t reblog BBC reports but here is the link.
These days poetry can be found anywhere and is given many uses. Today the BBC reports a passenger complaining in verse to Norwegian Airlines and getting a verse response.
I can’t reblog BBC reports but here is the link.
Two workshops that sound really interesting. And free, too, what could be better?
Thanks to Short Stops, a blog for the short story, for posting.
‘Cullopmton’s Wool Trade, Coldharbour Mill and the Walronds –
A Historical Fiction Romance and Adventure Creative Short Story Workshop’.
Thursday the 14th of September – Free Morning Workshop
(9.45am registration and a 10am start. Finish at 12 o’clock.)
To book contact: cullompton.library@librariesunlimited.org.uk
Your Workshop Facilitator will be Myfanwy (Vanni) Cook, who is currently the ‘New Voices’ Feature Editor for ‘The Historical Novel Society Review Magazine’ and an Associate Fellow at two Universities. She is the author of ‘Historical Fiction Writing – A practical guide and tool-kit’ and is passionate about bringing local history alive.
www.historicalnovelsociety.org
https://twitter.com/MyfanwyCook
Thursday the 14th of September – Free Afternoon Workshop
The “Golgotha” and St. Andrew’s Church –A Historical Crime Fiction Creative Short Story Workshop
for those who enjoy the writing of Ellis Peters and Umberto Eco
(1.45pm Registration and a 2pm start. Finish at 4pm.)
To book contact: cullompton.library@librariesunlimited.org.uk
Thanks to The Little Red Reviewer for interesting and insightful reviews. I haven’t read any of these books, but might be tempted – if I ever get the time.
June, where did you go? Last I checked it was June 2nd, how is it already July?? I didn’t post many reviews in June, but I did get a lot of reading done. Some of these I’ll write reviews for, some of them will get a capsule review in this post. Here’s what I was up to this month:
I finished this fun little gem:
Spock Must Die is the famous novel where thanks to a transporter malfunction, the Enterprise now has two Spocks. Which one is the “real” one? What will they do with the other one? When war breaks out at the Klingon border, the importance of solving the mystery ratchets up. Even when Kirk is sure which Spock is the true, original Spock, he insists on calling his friend “Spock Two”. When questioned why, Kirk responds that by saying “two” every time he says his friend’s name…
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I wish I was in Buxton to hear this talk. Thank you James Burt for reminding me that the ‘official’ history isn’t all there is.
The Odditorium: the tricksters, eccentrics, deviants and inventors whose obsessions changed the world (Hodder & Stoughton, 2016) includes some amazing characters. Some you’ll have heard of, some you probably won’t. All of them have changed the world, although in some cases the wider world hasn’t noticed yet. They include Joshua Norton, first Emperor of America, and Reginald Bray, who carried out strange experiments with the Royal Mail. I was delighted to be asked to write about Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who is by far my favourite explorer.
When I was at school, we were often told stories about adventurers and explorers as something to aspire to. Captain Robert Falcon Scott was held up as a great example, bravely sacrificing himself in an attempt to reach the South Pole. As Sara Wheeler once described Antarctica, our southernmost continent often seems to be “a testing-ground for men with frozen beards to see how dead…
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Korean literature is new to me. I’ve just bought this book and look forward to reading it. I don’t generally go for romance, but this sounds intriguing.
My thanks to the author of blog Word by Word for drawing my attention to it.
Ethereal, dream-like, accepting of their fate. South Korean working class literature.
Two young people work in an electronics market and slowly develop a friendship.
We meet Eungyo as she is following her shadow, causing her to become separated from the group she is with. Mujae follows her and stops her. Shadows rise and seem to lure one to follow it, something that others try to prevent, for it feels death-like.
Although it is never explained the constant mention of human shadows and their various behaviours provoke the reader’s imagination to ascribe meaning. Ill health and approaching death cause it to rise, and perhaps thoughts, reaching the limit of what one is able to endure. One shouldn’t follow it.
Their bond is formed as the environment within which they work is threatened with demolition. There is a subtle interdependency between the market traders, repairing and selling electronics, so when people who…
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An excellent demon for your next horror story. And a literary one, with contacts in Jane Eyre and Harry Potter.
Snarling dog from Darwin’s Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, 1872.
(Image Courtesy of The Wellcome Library, CC BY 4.0.)
According to Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel, Jane Eyre, a Gytrash is a goblin or spirit which takes the form of a horse, mule, or large dog. Typically found in the North of England, the Gytrash “haunted solitary ways” and often surprised unwary travelers as they journeyed alone in the dusk. Jane Eyre herself encounters what she believes to be a Gytrash one bleak, January evening as she is walking from Thornfield Hall to post a letter in the nearby village of Hay. Alerted to its arrival by a loud, clattering noise, Jane observes:
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A good summary of the books shortlisted for this prize. Thank you Little Blog of Books for the info.
The winner should be announced today, but I think all these books are worth knowing about.
Yesterday, I went to an event at the Wellcome Collection in London to hear the six authors nominated for this year’s Wellcome Book Prize discuss their shortlisted books. The annual award is open to works of fiction and non-fiction which engage with some aspect of health, illness or medicine, or “the ultimate human subject” as chair Anne Karpf said in her introduction.
The books on this year’s shortlist are:
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Ambisinister
My response to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Wordle #117 “July 11th, 2016”
Ambisinister as a duck,
I scratch the surface of a metaphor
That destructs
In a shivering thunderhead
Of poetic ephemerids,
Filling the chambers
Of my heart with benign
Imagery and rhyme.
No need to bribe
Saint Peter
To enter
The plush gates of heaven
When you have your own
Narrow turnstile.
© Kim M. Russell, 2016
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