Northern Territory
We were at the lake’s edge, nothing for fifty miles. September and the first freeze glinting between wet stones,…
Passage through Icebergs
(Painted as Voyage to Labrador by Alfred Wallis, 1935-6) Pinnacles accompany steady Course, the odd dry-docked Whiteness with its…
The Selkie
Her face like a river-beaten stone on the day she rolled from the city of white walls, and pebbly…
Dawn
On steel earth and dog heat The dogs wept. Not silence. Not even the silence of the cage After…
Matisse and the Dancer
Eternal female, colour constructed in yellow armchair, fully relaxed, contours voluptuous, pattern Islamic, gazing at silhouette leaves on a…
On the Astrolabe as Described by the Science of Astronomy
Translated by Ghayth Armanazi The most precious companion of those of noble breed; Do not therefore be without, whether…
Passchendaele
Hard to imagine, as the coaches roll Along small unimportant roads through fens Blotted by bungalows and ugly sheds…
At Saint Christopher’s Hospice
You lie bald-headed on a white pillow, small hands weaving our tangled world together. And how your calmness calms…
Richard Taruskin: Music, Words and the Idea of History
Monteverdi: Music is the Servant of the Words, O/Modernt, Confidencen, Ulriksdals Slottsteater, Solna, Sweden, 11–17 June 2012; Music and…
Taking a Long View
Encounters with Islam: On Religion, Politics and Modernity, Malise Ruthven, IB Tauris, 267pp, £57.50 (hardback) The challenge which Islam,…
A Paraphrase for Survival
Bee Journal, Sean Borodale, Jonathan Cape, 112pp, £10 (paperback) Bees have been a symbol and source of eloquence for…
The Unknown Russian
An introduction to one of the most important artists yet to be discovered.
On your Marks
Ecstatics: A Language of Birds, Laura Drever and Lesley Harrison, Brae Editions, 36pp; The Long Woman, Charlotte Gann, Pighog…
Disorder into Melody:Opera Holland Park 2012
Lucia di Lammermoor, Donizetti (30 June 2012) Zanetto, Mascagni and Gianni Schicchi, Puccini (6 July 2012) Shortly before he…
Midterm Reports
Selected Poems, Don Paterson, Faber and Faber, 192pp, £14.99 (hardback) Yellow Tulips: Poems 1968-2011, James Fenton, Faber and Faber,…
Signing the Vivid Air
Stephen Spender: New Selected Journals 1939-1995, edited by Lara Feigel and John Sutherland with Natasha Spender, Faber & Faber,…
Between Presence and Absence
Black Cat Bone, John Burnside, Cape Poetry, 66pp, £10 (paperback) Black Cat Bone presents us with a liminal world…
The Unbearable Heaviness of Human Beings
Insecurity, Inequality and Obesity in Affluent Societies, edited by Avner Offer, Rachel Pechey and Stanley Ulijaszek, Oxford University Press/British…
Making Love Collectively
The parliamentary committee that charged NewsCorp with wilful blindness over phone-hacking should cast its gaze afield. Wilful blindness is…
Isaac D’Israeli’s Curious Conservatism
A late Romantic with a taste for the pliable narrative, Benjamin Disraeli played notoriously fast and loose with historical…
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