RECONNECTING WITH CAVAFY Shades of Love – Photographs Inspired by the Poems of C. P. Cavafy Dimitris Yeros, poems translated by David Connolly, Insight Editions, San Francisco, 2010, 165 pps, $75 Your nightingales, your songs, are living still And them the death that clutches all things cannot kill.(Callimachus) This volume landed in my postbox burdened… Continue reading
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The tide-watchers
THE TIDE-WATCHERS At the end of a sand-heaped lane A scene from Rembrandt – Worried lights clustered against hugeness; Lowlit men appraise an upraised ocean Boiling where a beach should be. Quiet speaking on a universal plain As wind blows the buckthorn flat and The blackest of black cattle stand against stars Behind… Continue reading
Cold constitutional
COLD CONSTITUTIONAL On the ice-edge of the hill Gazing down grateful from verge of valley, Coming in across country, a splinter of winter – My feet hold fields. And today, I saw the sun so wonderfully die, The land turn black, crisp cutout trees clutching stricken stars, My Ordnance Survey filled… Continue reading
Home life of a predator – scenes from the Leopard’s lair
Home life of a predator – scenes from the Leopard’s lair Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa – A Biography Through Images Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, Alma Books, Richmond (Surrey), 2013, 125 pp, £25 It must be at times frustrating to be a considerable academic and author in one’s own right, yet to be known chiefly because of… Continue reading
William (Brown) the conqueror
WILLIAM (BROWN) THE CONQUEROR British children’s writers usually find favour in America—from A. A. Milne and Kenneth Grahame to J. K. Rowling and Nick Park—but one who has never quite captured American hearts is Richmal Crompton, author of the classic Just William stories. Why this should be is unclear, because at their best the stories… Continue reading
The romance of the classical – on the Appian Way
THE ROMANCE OF THE CLASSICAL To the heart of youth the world is a highwayside. Passing for ever, he fares; and on either hand, Deep in the gardens golden pavilions hide R. L. Stevenson, Songs of Travel No youth, but a man in his 40s bareheaded under merciless sun. Nor were there any golden pavilions… Continue reading
Greens, reds and blues, and the extinction of distinction
GREENS, REDS, BLUES AND THE EXTINCTION OF DISTINCTION Ka ngaro I te ngaro a te Moa (“We are lost as the moa is lost”) Maori lament There he kneels, the young, proud, ignorant farmer – posing smiling with his dog and gun, and the unusual-looking predator he has just killed propped up against the fence…. Continue reading
Roy Kerridge and the relative merits of Marxism
ROY KERRIDGE AND THE RELATIVE MERITS OF MARXISM Triumphs of Communism, Roy Kerridge, Custom Books, 2010 All novels are semi-autobiographical, although novelists will often demur and claim their characters are composites. But Roy Kerridge is unapologetic about plucking real people from his family’s past and serving them up for public degustation, with only the most… Continue reading
Man of Aran – Erse ethnofiction
MAN OF ARAN – ERSE ETHNOFICTION Man of Aran (1934) The Aran Islands guard the mouth of Galway Bay, a NW to SE diagonal archipelago made up of three major islands – Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer – plus a couple of tiny uninhabited islets. Whether seen from the Clare or Connemara mainlands, from one of… Continue reading
An anti-Pilgrim’s Progress
AN ANTI-PILGRIM’S PROGRESS The Columbine Pilgrim Andy Nowicki, Counter Currents, San Francisco, 2011, pb, 107pps Andy Nowicki is a self- described “dissident reactionary malcontent” Catholic – and his second novel is an eloquent and original examination of the enduring effects of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. The excellently-delineated and aptly named Tony Meander is… Continue reading