Carrying on, in times like these I turn to poetry. CK Williams is working best right now, The Collected Poems (up to 2003).I’ve also just bought Writers, Writing, Dying (2013). I like his poems that are often slowly unfolding stories, long sentences, with spaces to pause and breath, both personal and political, moral and cosmopolitan. Is this [...]
‘entitlement’ was the word I was remembering. I added it between these other two, “death … hospitals”, when we were meeting yesterday in the city-centre Cafe. We were in the spirit of walkingtalkingwriting, and one aspect of the entitlement word we were on about was (entitlement/un-entitlment) the dialectic, in which both of us were entitled [...]
I noticed the phrase last week. It was on the landing above the stairs which lead down to the two yoga rooms in the basement. In the Yoga studios where I had also signed myself up for in central London: A month of classes for £45. What a deal, I thought. Several sentences intended to [...]
‘A Sweet Disorder’ Pardon my sarong. I’ll have a Shirley Temple. Certainly, sir. Do you want a cherry with that? I guess so. It’s part of it, isn’t it? Words! It is the words, isn’t it, that are increasingly hard to believe in. Without terminal humor (sic) that is – the above lines come from [...]
“I am ready to take the stand”, the middle-aged man said in a gesture of willed objectivity which reminded me of the work of another writer, George Perec. Not Life A User’s Manual. No, nothing so large, I was being reminded of a minor, mostly forgotten piece called Espece d’espaces written by Perec in 1974. [...]
There was mist on the mountain this morning, the air hardly moving, a slow drift of indistinctness through the pines. Nonetheless we were able to find the road and so continue the climb, discussing War and Peace and war and peace. News from down below was scarce but a text message was received which told [...]
The clash of her sparkling rings and painted nails: there is something indecent about us all as we grow older. I know she is a shocker with her flashy jewellery and clumpy ornaments, and bright hair tints and high colour make-up, but Agnes still has the way of drawing me in. Yes, let’s talk about [...]
Zap. Zap. Zap. Zap. Zap. Zap. Zap. Agnes joined me in the Made in Brazil north London café restaurant last Tuesday. I had gone there to write. “OK, I’ll have the feijoada”, she says, “but I am not drinking, so I’ll only have a beer.” “You can’t smoke,” I say as she brought out a packet [...]