In a remarkable extension of thought, The Book of the Peony buds, expands and lets fall astounding petals: prose poems and haiku invoking an infinite, unattainable peony. The peony is allegorical. It is approached with the mind. It is the illusory peony of separation, of birth and death. Or, it is the shimmering unity beyond Read More
Phoebe Power’s Shrines of Upper Austria beckons to the wayfarers. An amalgamation of poetry and prose, the collection is a seamless combination of imagery and narration. With its vocal fragments and lyricism, it is both political and perspicacious. Power’s Shrines of Upper Austria reads like the “humming” of a relic folk tune, remembered, re-sung, and Read More
displays of pride, the concupiscent eye bent inward w/ súch deep longing. When readers omit a poem’s title, I’m perturbed. Poets fret over titles. Not just their wording. Should it hold to the left, be centred? Capitalisation? If there is superscription, are italics necessary? Are endnotes too hidden? Are footnotes overly close and distracting? Don’t Read More
Picking up Paolozzi Revealed, I did expect a window into the private life of this creative titan. Instead, this summary of a Masterclass run by the renowned sculptor reads more like a research paper on creativity. But maybe that is indeed, in itself, revealing of Paolozzi, this book seemingly an embodiment of the creative process. In Read More
Ali Bacon is a graduate of the University of St Andrews and worked as a librarian at the Bodleian in Oxford. Her first novel, Kettle of Fish, was published by Thornberry in 2012. In the Blink of an Eye is set in Victorian Edinburgh and charts the fortunes of two pioneering photographers, Robert Adamson and Read More
“The hardest thing of all is to see what is really there” (J A Baker) I clatter down the stairs of the Tower Extension at the University of Dundee, heart pounding inside my chest, hoping that my voice will come back to me and my nerves will disappear like the rolling haar on the Read More
Imogen Hermes Gower’s debut novel, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, is a beautifully written slice of Georgian life that depicts the fortunes of a widower merchant, an ambitious courtesan, and a mermaid. Gower’s London is intricate and robust; she uses her background in archaeology and anthropology to breathe life into the city through the smallest Read More
Virtual Walls | Real Walls is the first solo exhibition by pioneering visual artist, Madelon Hooykaas. Born in the Netherlands in 1942, Hooykaas has devoted her artistic life to working with photography, film and video. She makes documentary films and short film installations, but she also “works with” film in a literal sense, interacting and Read More
“They all want the Germans gone, just like you do. But don’t be thinking that makes you welcome”. Set in the Ukraine in 1941, one of the darkest periods of that country’s history, Seiffert’s story is told in language which seems, in a remarkable way, to echo the rhythms of the native language of her Read More
The great Gaius Valerius Catullus lived, loved and died in northern Italy around the time of Julius Caesar and Cicero. Not much is known about him other than what can be gleaned from his poems, for example, that he had a great fondness of kissing: Give me a thousand kisses, then one hundred, then a Read More