I wanted people to sit still for one goddam minute but they flash through your life – portraits are for the dead. In these lines, Tamar Yoseloff voices Jackson Pollock as part of a remarkable narrative sequence, but such is her versatility that it may also speak of her own prolific, multi-faceted output. An American, Read More
Strathearn Snow Perthshire spirals down, curls inside this bleach bowl. On that flat strath floor, Earn’s eel sparkles black. Cottages shoal to Dunning as single ones are lost. Some fin up Ruthven’s elver burn. Hunch birds of prey wire up, never where they seem. © Beth McDonough Ed: “Strathearn Snow” first appeared in Raum 1(3), Read More
The country that separates fathers and sons has disorientated many travellers. It is very easy to get lost there. […] And the fathers must have known, having once themselves been sons, that the ghostly presence of their land will remain […] Hisham Matar’s debut In the Country of Men, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (2006) and more; his second, Anatomy of a Disappearance (2011), showed his was Read More
Get rid of words and meaning, and there is still poetry. Yang Wanli (1127-1206) Firstly, Newcastle University and Bloodaxe Books must be congratulated for instigating and publishing this innovative series of lectures. Quantum Poetics gathers three given by former Welsh National Poet Gwyneth Lewis. Though highly engaging and accessible, these are not for the dabbler. Read More
Early in the 1980s, I visited an extraordinary installation in the Centre Georges Pompidou. Viewers wore special slippers to enter a room, a carpet to ceiling, wall to wall kinetic/op art environment which seemingly undulated, changing entirely when studied from different positions. The artist’s use of lenticular printing on folded surfaces, in precise mathematical terms, Read More
This is an edited transcript and interview, recorded in May 2016 at the University of Dundee for DURA. The interview can be viewed by clicking on the image above. Beth McDonough: Good afternoon Brian Johnstone… it’s a pleasure to have you here. If I were to go through your CV, I think we would take Read More
Em Strang (Shearsman Books, 2016); pbk: £8.99 Em Strang distrusts labels. For her “Eco-poetry” carries connotations of Green activism, yet she accepts her work is “ecological”. Undoubtedly a feminist, she won’t have her work so named. Equally, she is certain that she is not a nature poet, and though her work has roots in mythology Read More
A.L. Kennedy (Jonathan Cape, 2016); hbk. £17.99 Dundee-born A.L. Kennedy needs no introduction, being extensively published in fiction, no slouch in non-fiction, and a respected commentator in various media. She sidelines as an acerbic stand-up comedian; all these abilities and honed forms of observation feed Serious Sweet. At the time of reviewing, this book has Read More
True, we will never be beyond our histories. And so I am the island. And so this is a warning. Wife opens with “Dangerous Things” ; a few pages later, the full-page prose poem “Dictionary” sets out a clear stall as to how that titular word might be explored, initially from a European perspective, then Read More
