Graeme Richardson
@ravoon.bsky.social
Poetry Critic for the Sunday Times. Anglican Priest. Poetry Collection, "Dirt Rich", out from Carcanet. TLS contributor since 2010. All views very much my own.
One of the many gems of Dublin folklore about Yeats, recorded by Richard Ellmann in 1946.
I'm enjoying the miniatures of "Red River Valley", the latest from @imcmillan.bsky.social - very good on memory and shining moments. This reminds me of Causley's "Eden Rock".
John McGahern taking no prisoners. From John McGahern: A Writing Life by Frank Shovlin
Maturity is not quoting this passage in a review with the comment "That's a lot of old Bauls"
Always an interesting exercise to work out whether I agree with JN-T's choices - have a read and subscribe -
Jeremy Noel-Tod@jntod.bsky.social · 3w agoI chose seven poems from new books I’m enjoying for your Sunday and week ahead, featuring Rae Armantrout, Patricia Lockwood, Pierre Reverdy and more
Bluesky fact-check please: is the quote actually from "Vortex"? I think it's from "Vorticism" which Pound published later that year (1914) in the Fortnightly Review.
An interesting thread - and do buy Clare's "Lives of the Female Poets"...
Clare Pollard@poetclare.bsky.social · 4w agoSo last year LIVES OF THE FEMALE POETS came out, my first collection in eight years, and I worked really hard on getting back into the poetry scene. Teaching three residential courses, two online, lots of one-off workshops, mentoring, reviewing regularly, writing a poetry substack… 1/3
Lionel Johnson (WB Yeats's friend) writing in 1891. Plenty here that still has critical point, I think.
Thom Gunn. A beautiful poem. "I was still separate on the shadow's ground/But, charged with growth, was being altered, Composing uncomposed."
"Dirt Rich" is reviewed by Declan Ryan with his usual sharpness in the current Poetry Ireland Review - I'm so grateful to him, and to Colm Toibin @poetryireland.bsky.social
Louis MacNeice, who died in London sixty-three years ago today.
Honoured to be here: paywalled, but I like the effect of Clare's words disappearing into the mist. A 'meteor' into the 19thC meant any atmospherical disturbance, hence 'meteorology'. Clare's 'personal' experience of one was a common tale, as if Clare incorporated folk culture so much he embodied it.
Ian Duhig - Whisp, White Meteor
Ian Duhig: Whisp, White Meteor
literaryreview.co.uk
The love poetry is the best bit of MacNeice's Autumn Journal
In memory of Tim Curry, why not watch him in the lovely 1975 version of "Three Men in a Boat" - Tom Stoppard script, Stephen Frears directs, Michael Palin and Stephen Moore play along - youtu.be/zgwkbipco2M?...
"THREE MEN IN A BOAT" (1975 Jerome K. Jerome TV Adaptation-starring Tim Curry, Michael Palin)
YouTube video by Archive Media Vault
youtu.be
How pleasant to hear Dr Pinkwart is a poet’s apothecary. I expect he prepares lots of stinkwort as an anti-inflammatory. Plus linctures and tinctures - not laudanum as did for our poor S.T.C. - but cod liver oils with real cod in them and tisanes (as Poirot called tea).
How pleasing to find out that my apothecary's name is Dr Pinkwart
Samuel Johnson, always worth a minute of your time -
Peter McDonald@pmcdthisandthat.bsky.social · last mo.And: Poets, indeed, profess fiction; but the legitimate end of fiction is the conveyance of truth; and he that has flattery ready for all whom the vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt, must be scorned as a prostituted mind, that may retain the glitter of wit, but has lost the dignity of virtue.
Not the hottest take, but when reviewing I often think of Sam Johnson on Lycidas: "Where there is leisure for fiction, there is little grief."
This morning’s guest on the Writer’s Bookshelf is the great @ianduhig.bsky.social.
The writer’s bookshelf: Ian Duhig
Eight questions about writers, books, and reading…
mathewlyons.substack.com
That @roguestrands.bsky.social has bet me a free KFC that this post won't get 150+ reposts/ lead to any sales of my pamphlet, Collecting the Data (Available via me or Red Squirrel Press). Help me prove him wrong please. A Mat Needs His Nuggs* * Booksales www.redsquirrelpress.com/product-page...
This morning I took a picture of the mummified left hand of a saint. Perhaps I used the wrong camera, but to the profane eye it looks like a beloved dog chew.
Alec Guinness on TS Eliot; "I have rarely met a man who could laugh so richly and warmly... I have never met a man with a better palate for a really good, strong, ice-cold, very dry Martini; and I doubt if I have met a man - playwright, poet, man of letters - of greater humility"
I can't review this because Naush is a friend, but I can recommend it: Lentic, the new pamphlet from @naush.bsky.social - a beautiful thing available from @guillemotpress.bsky.social
