Caroline Hett
@carolinehett.bsky.social
Walk, read, write, swim, garden, sleep.
Make a band edible: Fleetwood Big Mac
Uniformbooks@uniformbooks.bsky.social · 2mo agoMake a band edible: Henry Cow Pie
Home now after swimming the 2KM Christiansborg Rundt and the Kruger Relay in Copenhagen. Lovely time with friends and family in a beautiful city.
Walking the cobbles of Nyhavn thinking about Samuel Beckett and I pass this. Synchronicity?
This seems the perfect day for us all to read Julian Stannard’s excellent poem The University of Lanyard #Lanyard
They should have timed Starmer's resignation for the moment of the eclipse, like some sort of ancient portent.
Delightful light night reading: From 1999, letters Samuel Beckett and Ernie Bushmiller exchanged over four months in 1952-1953:
The Beckett/Bushmiller Letters | The American Reader
theamericanreader.com
‘It’s a national reclamation’: the 12-year festival bringing Samuel Beckett back to Ireland
‘It’s a national reclamation’: the 12-year festival bringing Samuel Beckett back to Ireland
The playwright has long been considered one of the country’s most famous exports, but not an ‘Irish writer’. An ambitious new season of plays explores his complex relationship with his homeland – and tickets are already on sale for 2036
theguardian.com
Vase of flowers from the garden, everything apart from the cotinus grown from seed. My garden would like some rain now please.
I wrote about how the young Andy Burnham's admiration for Philip Larkin was all part of his grand plan to rule the UK
"Little Englandism of the Left"
How Andy Burnham's bid for power started with Philip Larkin
someflowerssoon.substack.com
I love the way Michael Hofmann describes Wallace Stevens as “the Matisse among poets” and “imitating a whole orchestra, not despising the triangle.” (Behind the Lines by Michael Hofmann, published by Faber & Faber.)
Today at the lido: 18 degrees in the water. Cycled 10KM here and about to cycle the 10KM home after a gorgeous swim. Forgot to bring a sandwich.
After two months using the leisure centre’s sweat-drenched yoga mats, I finally rested my third eye on my own mat.
Holy Trinity Church in Blythburgh is very special to me. Such a joy to find Humphrey Jennings—my latest poetry crush— looking at the same rafters in his poem ‘Blythburgh’.
Dreamt I was with Humphrey Jennings on the terrace at Tate Modern. HJ was filming Hieronymous Bosch’s Ascent of the Blessed against the backdrop of St Paul’s at night. It was my job to turn on and off off an enormous floodlight. (I blame @jntod.bsky.social ’s wonderful poetry Substack.)
Now finished the unfinished autobiography tra-la.
Caroline Hett@carolinehett.bsky.social · 2y agoHaving a very serious holiday romance with Louis MacNeice. It started with Selected Poems (ed by Auden), then raced on to his unfinished autobiography. My marriage is now in tatters; LM poems sound so goddam good read aloud.
Having a very serious holiday romance with Louis MacNeice. It started with Selected Poems (ed by Auden), then raced on to his unfinished autobiography. My marriage is now in tatters; LM poems sound so goddam good read aloud.
The violent fascist riots in the UK may be over for now. I begin to hope so. But it’s not sufficient to say they were ‘not British’. White supremacism is woven into history, culture, language. Here’s a thread of UK-based poets who have written about how this can be found in everyday situations.
Been thinking about this. Malcolm Lowry and also Jean Rhys. After Leaving Mr Mackenzie is a work of genius.
David Collard@davidcollard.bsky.social · 3y agoWho do you think is the best (not 'greatest') English (not Welsh, Scottish or Irish) novelist of the 20th century? It's a crowded field, and I'll start the ball rolling with Richard Hughes (1900-1976). Any takers?
What has gone wrong, that we should all seem to be made of paper and straw? John Cheever, Journals, The Sixties Wonderful book.
I know I make a symbol Of the foxglove on the wall. It is because it knows you. from Dear Bryan Wynter by WS Graham
I write about myself with the same pencil and in the same exercise book as him. It is no longer I, but another whose life is just beginning.
The warmth and light beginning to go now. Coffin on its way. Fade. Gone. (Gardening Samuel Beckett style.)
“Great quiet over land and sea. No transistors. No excrutiating 2-strokes. Stone & stones everywhere, often golden, outcrop & innumerable walls.” Samuel Beckett, Letter from Malta
