Meditating on Time and Place During a Leisurely Venice Bar Crawl

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Poem: ‘A Letter to Spinoza from Venice’.

Baruch, I write from Venice,Where the city holds itself togetherThe way a theorem holds, not by force,But by the quiet agreement of its parts.You might, perhaps, approve of that.Today, I crossed in…

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Poem: ‘Appropriation; Lines on the Circular Motifs on the Façade of the Ca’Dario, Venice’.

Cairo: a giant astrolabe revolving in the sun;The skies are chimed and charmed with minarets,Thin, insistent tuning forks struck by light.Here the ambassador, Giovanni Dario, arrives With gifts and…

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Poem: On a postcard sent by Albert Einstein to his mother, Venice 1900.

I read this as if I were beside you now,Though I am a century-and-a-quarter away.I’d like to say time bends around us,But it holds its old assumptions here,Oblivious to the arts you’ll teach …

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Poem: ‘Clock Watching’ (on public executions in Venice)

Today they say, te digo che ora xe,Dark banter this, to pass the time of day:I’ll tell you what bloody time it is, they say.For in Venice long ago, they’d show the timeTo someone who had litt…

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Poem: ‘Holiday Romance’

Of course he will be overwritten, blurredBy flights and screens and pricey airport snacks,And then in the uncoiling scroll of timeBack home: the cheerless flat, joint debts,A restless child, a husb…

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Poem: Portrait of a Nice Girl in Venice

Venice was hard at work for her:The sky with practised, Turneresque excess,The bells affirmatively calling outHow nice she looked; yet nonetheless, Framed by water, sky and seasoned ruin, By Venice…

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Poem: Unmeasured Time; A Venetian Postcard to Proust

Marcel, the fog seems more than fog today.Rather, the mass of all unmeasured time,Past, present, future, folding into one,Dissolving rubrics, maps and almanacs,Time regained, restoring you to me. T…

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Elegy for Alex Pretti

In a city which continued as arranged,With traffic, coffee, and a daily fear,There walked a man whose task was merelyTo attend: the pulse, the fearful eye,The ordinary panic of the blood.He knew th…

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Poem: A Venetian Postcard to Ernest Dowson

A Venetian Postcard to Ernest Dowson

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Poem: Larkin’s Typewriter

Dawn breaks on the workhorse Olivetti.What secrets can its sworn-at ribbon tellOf muse-deserted years? The kettle clicks,The curtains lift on Hull, unchanged, unlit.A bicycle ticks cooling in the h…

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Poem: ‘On Mariano Fortuny’

Light is what he argued with,not as a quarrel but a courtship:how to persuade it to stay,to take a room by the handand teach it manners.In his palazzo the lamps hang,patient moons, pleated, reticen…

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Robin Saikia – Venetian Poems

Venetian Light Song for a Dying Gondola Homage to Corvo A Trial of Four Seasons Ode on the Façade of Santa Maria del Giglio Lines on a Byzantine Relief in Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello Good Russian…

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Poem: ‘Torcello’

I drink my grappa reflectively,my silver hip flask catching what little late afternoon lighthas not already dispersed itselfamong reeds and distant bells,here in the marshland.My dog dozes on the p…

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Venetian Poem: ‘A Trial of Four Seasons’

I. SPRINGLet Venice rise in a glass-green hush,Clear as the prayer of a saint rejoicing.Then the dark, valedictory winter skySummons the stones to rise and speak.Spring issues its first hesitant af…

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Poem: ‘Song for a Dying Gondola’

Now in the twilight shed of the squero,where resin dreams and sea-salt dust collect,they ease you from your stilts,old swimmer of the city’s veins,and let your spine uncoil.For years you slipped al…

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Edward Gibbon reflects on Nigel Farage

It has seldom been the fate of a nation, once great in commerce, philosophy, and the liberal arts, to entrust its future to a figure so paltry, and yet so destructive, as Mr. Nigel Farage. That thi…

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Robin Saikia – Venetian Poems

Venetian Light – Katia Margolis Venetian Light Homage to Corvo Good Russians in Venice A Ruskin Sunset Venice Midwestern The Bitta Who is Better? The Fenice Burns Tadzio’s Wedding St. M…

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Drink & Think Venice: David Hewson interviews Robin Saikia

David Hewson called by this morning and we had an extremely enjoyable chat about Drink & Think Venice - and about our mutual enthusiasm for this most engaging and improbable of cities. Check out David...

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Robin Saikia’s Drink & Think Venice — DAVID HEWSON

A review of Think & Drink Venice by Robin Saikia, an unusual and highly personal take on some of the watering holes of the city, with some fascinating insights into history and personalities over th...

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Robin Saikia

Robin Saikia's "Drink & Think Venice" offers a unique exploration of the city through 26 different drinks at various bars and cafes. Each chapter introduces a drink and then delves into a captivating ...

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