Mahler and the Music of the Future
By the accident of his dates of birth and death Mahler has provided us with two consecutive years by…
Holding Forth on Holding Back: How Food Has Been Shared Through the Ages
The sight of dogs frantically inhaling their food is strangely hypnotic. Where more than one is present growling, yapping…
Brindle Revisited
A sour wind howls down Duxon Hill, weeds lengthen in the cobbled yard, the lime trees on the lawn…
A Month in the Country
XVII How many kinds of mist? And times of mist? How many places for the mist to close over…
A Short Walk Down Whitehall
Even on the ten thousandth occasion, a walk along Whitehall ought to remind one that history is now and…
Three Poems
I Gilgamesh At the Blasted Gates At the blasted gates Gilgamesh falls to his knees. ‘What now?’ he cries. His…
In the Black Country
(for Roy Palmer) Brush the sooted trees at Cradley, Tramp the ironworks’ ash at Brierley, Taste the coal-dust, swirled…
Figurehead
Salt is how you taste and Tarred rope of frayed hair at Arm and groin as if I’m Swimming…
Three Poems
Catch 1. Grey Mullet Their mouths were small, lips too soft to tether a run, or bear their weight when…
Two Translated Poems by Sergey Esenin and Vladimir Mayakovsky
To most Anglophone readers Sergey Esenin (1895-1925) and Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) probably number among the less familiar Russian poets.…
Three poems
Condensation on a windowpane 1 I want to write something simple, something simple, few adjectives, ambiguities disallowed. Something old-fashioned: a story…
Mother’s Hats
London was the Mecca of hats for my mother and a shopping trip with her meant something for me…
Metaphysical Prose: The Art of Lydia Davis
If the name Lydia Davis doesn’t mean much to you, never fear: until recently it meant little to anyone,…
Ernest Dowson: London Poet and Absinthe Drinker
2 August 2010 marked a rather unlikely milestone in the legacy of Victorian bard Ernest Dowson; some eighty people…
Aunt Jane was a Fallen Woman, my family said
Her washing line held one dress, Grace Kelly like, large pink flowers blending to the garden. Wouldn’t have fitted…