The Stepping Stones to Eternity — from Flowering Poverello
From the Flowering Poverello blog, a poetry sequence which, for some reason, especially resonated. I will let it speak for itself, except the resonance began with the opening lines “I…
Category: no more
“He had an irritating habit of insulting waiters in restaurants, and often sat at the table for 45 minutes before deigning to consult the menu. ” – the Daily Telegraph obituary of Charles Higham
I am partial to the odd rogue (fully aware that, as the narrator of “The Spy Who Loved Me” would say, it reads better than it lives) and partial to the obituary page…
The best, definitive version of “You’re Gonna Hear From Me” – from Scott Walker (beating off Sinatra, Streisand and even Shirley Bassey)
“You’re Gonna Hear From Me” is a song by the late André Previn written with his then wife Dory, from the movie Inside Daisy Clover . Natalie Wood’s original vocals were…
“Machinery” by Robert Wrigley
On what would have been my father’s 87th Birthday this poem by Robert Wrigley seems fitting. It captures something of the tension between the worlds of literary endeavour and the…
“Circle”, a poem by Holly Day
via Rabid Oak, Issue 12, a poem about recurrence in history. And crows: History gathers up in a swirl of images seemingly unconnected as individual incidents clumping together to form a…
Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”, the poetry of loss, and bereavement
The poetry magazine Magma has a call for submissions for a special issue on Loss. The deadline is April 30th – so you better get writing if you want to enter…
Sacred Music from Notre Dame Cathedral, Tonus Peregrinus
A few weeks ago I posted tracks from this album as part of the ChoralMarch blog series. It is hard to believe the cover of this album – with Notre…
A short film about Curlews: “Keeper of the Call”
World Curlew Day is next Sunday, April 21st. The decline of the curlew, whose call truly merits that overused word “iconic”, is one of the most shocking natural history stories…
Séamus Sweeney 