This was my entry to the National Poetry Competition. I did not win, so you get to read what is, effectively, a loser’s poem. Lucky you.
A beautiful history
When I read Horrible Histories author Terry Deary’s thoughts on libraries on Wednesday, I don’t think I’ve been angrier with an author since I tried to read The Lord of the Rings the first time and there was all that shit about Hobbits. Since then I’ve had several conversations online about it, and this is an informal gathering, really, of thoughts I’ve had and thoughts others have expressed to me when I’ve brought the subject up. So, what I’m saying is ‘sorry if I’m just using your ideas, but I wanted to put everything together’.
A fragment
Just something I found myself needing to write as I rode the train home. I suppose if it’s about anyone, it’s about my wife. She’s brunette, but I couldn’t not use the first line.
Continue reading A fragment
Brief thoughts on poetry
Poetry, I told myself this morning, is stained glass. Language is like a sheet of glass, a window. Beautiful, often; functional, it allows us to see the world without being in it, and usually we catch our own reflection as we look, fading ghostlike into the landscape. Hard and unyielding, language can be melted and reformed, though it always comes back to what it is, what it was.
Continue reading Brief thoughts on poetry
A Perfect Place
In the early hours of the morning, or the late hours of the night (depending on how you look at time), the towpath was quiet, still and very dark. No light from the surrounding houses, roads and ill-fated gastropubs filtered through the dense cover of willow. It was a perfect place for a quiet run, or for an accident, a murder.
Continue/Quit? – additional material
HELLO! This is a crossover with my MostlyFilm piece on videogame difficulty. It’s the full text of my email interviews with Mark and Kasper. I’m shit at questions, but luckily they were good at answers. So here they are!
The black dog
I’m writing a story for Hallowe’en, because I like traditions. Yes, you might argue, the best time for ghost stories is Christmas, but I’ve started doing them at Hallowe’en now and so I’m trapped in a tradition of my own making. And yes, I’ve not done many of them so I might just up and break this.. look, whose blog is this, yours or mine? Thank you.
Anyway. I’m writing it. And I’m circling back to an idea I have had before, but never used. I’m back to it because I think it’s creepy, but I’m not sure exactly where to take it. I’m tempted to take it to fairytale territory, because fairytales are folk tales, and what are folk tales but the raw, crystallised fears of our ancestors?
Flawed
National Poetry Day, yes? Good, here’s my poem. A bit rough and ready, I fear.
The moon rose
in daylight
through hesitant mist,
so we stumbled
beneath closed eyes
into its unheeded light.
Continue reading Flawed
Fire work
A bit about nothing, a bit about losing focus, a bit about the melancholy comedown after the Olympics and Paralympics. This has been sitting in a notepad for a while, uncertain.
Continue reading Fire work
London Above
I’m experiencing an odd emotional state, at present. I’m, well, I’m proud. To be British. Not simply because we did so amazingly well in the Olympics; it’s because we’re doing so well at embracing our success. We’re happy, as a nation, to be a nation. It’s not something we’re used to, but we’ve gone at it, taken the opportunity to be great, claimed our country as ours. Everyone here belongs to the country, and the country belongs to all of us. Those few athletes who are our representatives, they’ve shown us something of themselves -determination, brilliance – and something of ourselves.