“The poetic moans of this century have been, for the most part, a banal patina of snobbery, vanity and sophistry: we’re in need of a new prosody[…]” (“Letter on Riots and Doubt”) If, like me, you spend too much of your free time skulking around the darker, meme-ier corners of YouTube, you may have encountered Read More
Sandra Ireland’s debut novel Beneath the Skin haunts you from the moment you first turn the opening pages. Echoes of former traumas are deeply embedded in the lives of fully realised, broken characters and ring in the reader’s ears from the first moments. In a time of clichéd explosions in soda adverts, or brutal, overt Read More
(USA, 2017) 31 March- 13 April 2017, DCA Having directed Maleficent, The Jungle Book and Cinderella with relative success in recent years, Bill Condon is well practiced at the adaptation of popular literature. Now, with a star-studded cast and a lavish budget, he turns his attention to a Disney fan-favourite, Beauty and the Beast. Though Read More
(Brazil, 2016) 31st March – 6th April 2017, DCA I went to see Aquarius feeling, at the last minute, a twinge of trepidation. Merely because I, like the protagonist, am a woman named Clara who writes, has been accused of stubbornness, and could definitely see myself being embroiled in some standoff with a construction Read More
(UK, 2017) 24 March – 30 March 2017, DCA “History is written by the victors”, reads the opening title card of Viceroy’s House, signalling the desire to question the accepted narrative of India’s partition in 1947. However, in seeking to expose the emotional reality through a Muslim/Hindu love story, this UK made costume drama remains Read More
“It is cruel to expect me to be both mother and daughter – such different expectations.” Joanna Walsh’s new book Vertigo (a collection of short stories would be an equally apt description) offers a series of glimpses into the life of her protagonist. She is a mother. A child. A wife. A lover. Walsh portrays Read More
(2015 USA) 24th – 27th March 2017, DCA It is rare that coming of age stories are rewarded with such verity as The Fits. Anna Rose Holmer’s debut film weaves a minimal but complex poetic narrative which centres on Toni (Royalty Hightower), a heedful protagonist whose steady, athletic posture amidst the nervous tension of Read More
In this one-and-a-half-day international conference, hosted by the University of Dundee’s Centre for Critical and Creative Cultures, writers and teachers, academics, publishers and journalists will come together in a concentrated forum of panel discussions, readings and question-and-answer sessions that will explore the meaning and usefulness of this most supple, porous and open-ended literary form. Held Read More
Born in Cambridgeshire to American parents in 1933, Anne Stevenson has over sixteen published collections to date of predominantly lyrical works. Although her early adult years were spent in the United States where she graduated from the University of Michigan and published her first collection, Stevenson later returned to the U.K. to live permanently. She Read More
Ardent angler and Yorkshireman Chris McCully has followed a long and fruitful career in academia both at the University of Manchester and in the Netherlands. Born in Bradford in 1958, he now resides in Colchester where he researches English poetic form and metrics at the University of Essex and publishes in a range of genres Read More