Open Plan is the neat title for a volume of poems by Graham Fulton, which distills with wit and precision the strange reality of being an office-worker. Published by Smokestack Books in 2011, Open Plan is a thoroughly rewarding read, belying what at first may sound like unpromising material - the daily grind in an …
Author: Hilaire
I am a writer of poetry and prose. I was born and brought up in Melbourne but have lived in London most of my adult life.
An Aldeburgh Diary
Friday 7th June For some time , I've wanted to visit Aldeburgh and see the places where Benjamin Britten lived and worked, to wander along the beach and immerse myself in the landscape that inspired him. This weekend, at last, we're going, coinciding with the opening of the 66th Aldeburgh Music Festival, which was originally …
not i . . . but i was there . . .
in the pitch black . . . a mouth emerges floating . . . words begin . . . she speaks fast unstoppable a terrible troubled disembodied outpouring . . . snatches of memories cowslips tears falling into a palm realisation they must be hers . . . the one time she cried . . …
lisson up
Straight from work yesterday evening to the Lisson Gallery for two exhibition previews. Canadian artist Rodney Graham has new and recent work on show at 29 Bell Street. Striking photographic tableaux are mounted in large lightboxes, the colours rich and intense, the images hyperreal. And also very witty. A scientist in his lab stares pensively …
see hear
Yesterday evening we strolled along to the opening of Change of Signature, billed as a multimedia installation, at Testbed 1, a local exhibition space that I hadn't come across before. And it proved to be a fascinating show. The venue is a large, stripped out industrial space: uneven concrete floors, distressed iron girders, ceramic tiled …
spring fever
At last, at long bloody last, spring seems to have arrived. I'm wearing footless tights, for only the second time this year. I've opened the bedroom window - not wide, but enough for a gentle waft of London air and London sounds to permeate the flat. The heating's been off for a couple of weeks, …
big up for a little mag
Issue Fifteen of South Bank Poetry magazine is a bit of a cracker. The strapline is 'London and Urban Poetry', and the current issue features many Scottish themed poems alongside the London contingent. A fitting blue and white cover, and just under 40 pages of fine poems, given room to breathe and interact with each …
muses aplenty
Thursday 4th April. Outside, the bitter easterly wind continued to savage awnings, umbrellas and most people's spirits. We'd had snow flurries and sleet all day, and London's pavements spattered a thin muddy muck on everyone's boots. In the downstairs bar of Cotton's Caribbean Restaurant in Exmouth Market, nearly 30 women writers, plus friends and supporters, …
humour me
It took me a very long time to realise it's possible to be a serious (dedicated, life-committed), writer/artist/creative person and also to be funny, humorous, light-hearted (some of the time, at least). This doesn't seem such an astonishing discovery, but for years I was Very Serious, and the flip side of this was to be …
a packed week off – part two
I think this packed week off is catching up with me. Deep breath... So, Wednesday night to Loose Muse at the Poetry Café. I wavered, feeling tired and a kind of non-specific low-level anxiety, and then the intermittent flurries of snow did little to improve my mood. But I convinced myself to go, and the …
Hilaire 