It's just over eight weeks since I quit my job and time is doing that weird thing it seems to do of speeding up and filling up the more 'free' time one has. So I thought it might be good to take a step back and reflect on what I've done in that period. I've …
Category: reading
Friday night and Saturday morning
On Friday night I was on the bill with Joolz Sparkes at Fourth Friday at the Poetry Café, reading a bunch of poems from our London Undercurrents project. There's more about the event on our dedicated LU blog here. I'd been looking forward to this and practising for quite a while, and, as the reading …
underground reading
One of the few up sides of my enforced break from cycling was the extra reading time on the journey to and from work. I found poetry particularly suited to short bursts of reading, and also loved how individual poems could quickly plunge me into a completely different emotional and linguistic space to the squash …
a story about a novel
Once upon a time, I came across a collection of short stories titled Suck My Toes in a second-hand bookshop in Melbourne. I bought it, for the title, and the cover, which featured a pair of Blundstone boots, my favourite footwear for many years. I'd never heard of the author, Fiona McGregor, and if you're …
a short idiosyncratic list to round off 2014
The year is nearly out. Here are a few of my highlights of 2014. Ravel Day on BBC Radio 3 Friday 7th March was dedicated to the music and life of Maurice Ravel. I marked the day on my calendar as soon as I heard about it. His 139th birthday, so not a traditional landmark …
Continue reading a short idiosyncratic list to round off 2014
bright star by heart, sort of
The theme of this year's National Poetry Day was 'Remember', encouraging people to share a poem they know by heart. With about a week to go before the big day - Thursday 2nd October - Nick and I decided to try to memorise John Keats' untitled sonnet, reputedly the last he wrote, which starts 'Bright …
I’m still thinking about
Familiar by J. Robert Lennon, which I finished reading just over a fortnight ago. The premise of the novel is intriguing: 40-something Elisa Macalaster Brown is driving home on one of those long straight American highways on a hot day in July. She's returning from her annual visit to her younger son's grave in the …
doing the antipodean Shuffle
No, it's not a dodgy dance move. This was a special antipodean edition of the monthly poetry event The Shuffle, which took place last night at the Poetry Café. Co-hosted by Cath Drake and Gale Burns, the evening featured eight Australian and Kiwi poets, and I was very pleased to be one of those invited …
Melbourne scrapbook
Here are some snaps and snippets from my recent trip home. Home? To the city where I was born, where I grew up, that I made a conscious choice to leave many years ago. London is home now. Melbourne is family, a few friends, home-but-not-home. What's that line from a Gang of Four song? 'At …
difficult reading
A few thoughts on two recent reads that deal with difficult subject matter. I've just finished The Watch Tower by Elizabeth Harrower. Set in Sydney in the 1940s, it's a compelling psychological novel centring on a manipulative and abusive relationship. The novel begins as sisters Laura and Clare Vaizey are withdrawn from boarding school by …
Hilaire 