Making an example of oneself isn’t always easy. Making an example of one’s poetry even less so. Nevertheless, I took a stab at explaining some of the process behind writing the poem “Reading Dostoevsky in the John Lewis Café, Welwyn Garden City” in a new post on the Nine Arches Press blog. The poem appears …
On “Reading Dostoevsky in the John Lewis Café, Welwyn Garden City” Read More »
Ekphrastic poetry in response to big data? Yes, please. HSBC collected 16,000 verbatim responses to complete the statement, “Expat Life Is…”. They then commissioned me to write a poem addressing the eight major themes that emerged. The result is the poem sequence “Eightfold Expat“, which you can listen to and read on the HSBC Expat …
I believe that it is important to intelligently question the modern relevance of our ancestors’ words. It is as important to literature as it is to government. The Second Amendment to the US Constitution was enacted on December 15th, 1791, exactly 221 years ago today. I currently live in England–a country with no written constitution. …
You have played all the parts, rehearsed every line. You know the script like a memorised prayer. Yet now you are outside the play, sitting in the front row of the audience. Time has passed, and you have been in other productions since, with different dialogue, props, and sets. You realise that there are other, …
I spent fourteen months in England, working hard to make the odd feel normal. When what is foreign feels odd, it is understandable. But when what was formerly normal now feels odd, that is perhaps the oddest feeling of all. I now find myself, back in the US for a brief visit, ambling through coastal …
I am pleased to have a new poem appear in Issue 1.3 of Aperçus Quarterly. I am once again delighted to be in such good company. Also, of all the poems I have written since moving to London in May, this is the first to appear in print. I wrote this poem just three weeks …
