What’s in a name….reprise….
May 29, 2008
A couple of months ago, a call was put out for snippets of poetry which Michele could use as starting points for jewellery design. She received many interesting suggestions, even though one or two were deemed, on reflection, not quite the selling point she was looking for (hands up who suggested Rimbaud’s “red torment”….)
Nevertheless, she had much to work with, and after fulfilling some commissions, she’s finally produced some pieces based on suggestions received. You can see pictures here, here and here. (The second & third links are to sales sites; looking without buying is, however, tolerated….)
More pieces in this vein are planned, I understand. Meanwhile, many thanks to all those who suggested poetic inspiration.
May 29, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Now Steve, my recollection had it that the poetry was supposed to be of your devise! Likely not fully spelt out.
What do you think Michele?
Now don’t be bashful Steve, I think you likely have contributed!
ps. the last sentence is I feel, a la Wordnerd.
May 29, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Have amended the post to include another piece, which is on a different site (Etsy).
Iamnothere – I shudder to think what would result if Michele designed jewellery based on my doggerel….fashions come and go, but the world is nowhere near ready for doggerel jewellery….
May 29, 2008 at 10:34 pm
The amended site? Does that come under the first ‘here?’ ….beautiful!
May 29, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Red torment? What idiot suggested that? Oh…er, actually that would be me..then again, you never know when Michele might get a large order from some Satanic cult, in which case…
May 29, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Still, Michele used two of my suggestions, Blue Disorder, (Verlaine) and Whirlwinds of Fire, (Rimbaud). Very gratifying and sort of makes up for Red Torment…
May 29, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Red Torment Mishari? That sounds like ‘hell’
Even ghost writers are spared that!
May 29, 2008 at 11:27 pm
It was more the lice in the poem, Mishari, than any satanic overtones, that mitigated against “red torment”….in isolation “red torment” is a great name for a piece of jewellery; followers of the darker religions are big jewellery buyers and not a market to be despised….although not one for which Michele purposely designs, I should stress….
May 29, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Red Torment sounds like piles. My ‘Red-Socked Anti-Christ’ (Paisley) and ‘Orange Bastard’ (McGuinness) didn’t rate a mention. Back to the drawing board.
May 29, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Tony Jacklin Trouser Plaid and National Socialist Stormtrooper Brown didn’t make the cut, either…
May 29, 2008 at 11:50 pm
That rondeau of yours was pretty good, M. I was thinking of trying one but I couldn’t get the scheme sorted out in my head – too much independent thought required.
May 30, 2008 at 3:28 am
hey, i like Michele’s whirlwinds of fire creation – has a sort of civic quality to it – designed with the mayor of casterbridge in mind perhaps? really v. beautiful.
I have Luke Davis’ Totem Poem in mind for inspiration, but don’t have my copy with me atm, so have nicked this from the Australia poetry web site (with a great blurb about Davis by Michael Brennan). I’ll give you the web link in a separate post. Here’s a taste of Davis:
In the yellow time of pollen, in the blue time of lilacs,
in the green that would balance on the wide green world,
air filled with flux, world-in-a-belly
in the blue lilac weather, she had written a letter:
You came into my life really fast and I liked it.
May 30, 2008 at 3:31 am
Here’s the Davis link. The site a fairly new project thanks to gvt arts funding – gets better by the day. cheers.
http://australia.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=8190&x=1
May 30, 2008 at 7:10 am
Steve, would Michele be interested in quincunxes – you know, geometrical type things, as much as colours and textures? As the world’s nineteenth greatest living expert on Sir Thomas Browne’s Garden of Cyrus, I could direct her to some pretty prose…
May 30, 2008 at 8:05 am
Let me say a personal thanks to all who gave me the seed corn for this personal challenge. I still have a lot to draw on and with the suggestions on this thread even more! Thank you freepoland and parallax for your suggestions. I like the idea of the geometrical. I am hoping to do a few designs in artglass sometime this summer and geometrical design is great for that medium. It is also an interesting line for jewellery.
Mishari – I forgive you as it appears you didn’t know that the ‘red torment’ was about nits. Really into his bodily afflictions . . . the poet that is.
And another ‘thank you’ for the kind comments about my efforts (iamnothere & parallax). I’m quite pleased with ‘Whirlwind of Fire’ as it was a fairly spontaneous throw together of elements once I identified the focal point. I love this method of creation but the results can be very odd which I like but are not necessarily saleable.
Michele
May 30, 2008 at 8:28 am
Michele
Listening to Fairport COnvention last night, one of life’s great pleasures. This mysterious verse might be good for a piece combining colour and a kind of puzzle geometry.:
She’d not pulled a double rose,
a rose but only two
When up then came young Tam Lin
says “Lady pull no more”
May 30, 2008 at 8:33 am
Michele,
Can I say though that what I am really drawn to is your ‘leadlight art’, particularly your most expressive ‘part of self;’ surely that is a masterpiece!
May 30, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Michele: here’s a bit of The Garden of Cyrus (1658) (chap IV) in which the authour, in the midst of detecting the figure of the quincunx (the five of a dice)in every aspect of nature, culture and mystery, veers off from geometry in design, into a rhapsody on light and shade:
‘ Light that makes things seen, makes some things invisible; were it not for darknesse and the shadow of the earth, the noblest part of the Creation had remained unseen, and the Stars in Heaven as invisible as on the fourth day, when they were created above the Horizon, with the Sun, or there was not an eye to behold them. The greatest Mystery of Religion is expressed by adumbration, and in the noblest part of Jewish Types, we finde the Cherubims shadowing the mercy-seat: Life it self is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living: All things fall under this name. The Sunne it self is but the dark simulachrum, and light but the shadow of God.’
Might spark some ideas ….
May 30, 2008 at 12:31 pm
1658. bloody smileys go away !
May 30, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Mishari: tried to post on the GU summer poem thread, but it had closed down: – to say -
@artpepper. Bloody hell!!!! What next? A qasida in rhyming couplets on St Hugh of Lincoln? A condensed epic on the Fall of Persepolis using the boustrophedon technique, omitting the letter ‘e’? You know how to set the bar higher. Brilliant. (But do cheer up).
[Sunny here, but I just saw a stoat dragging a small expiring rabbit into the bushes. Summer a mixed blessing]
May 30, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Thanks, freep. I meant to compliment you on your especially fine esate-agent’s villanelle.
I’d never tried a Ballade Supreme before and the only ones I know are all French. The result was..erm..adequate, I guess.
However, I’m now busily driving myself to an early grave attempting the sestina. It’s fiendish. My wife keeps sticking her head through the door and asking me why I’m cursing so loudly. I’ll crack it, though. I’m waiting to see what Billy’s next subject will be.
I’m cheerful enough. Could be worse, after all. I could be a rabbit. But it’s almost June, for Christ’s sake. I demand sunshine, goddamnit…
May 30, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Looks like you’ve got your work cut out then, mish. Another poet. A sestina dedicated to …. go on, Wallace Stevens, you love him.
May 30, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Actually, freep, that works out quite well. Stevens’ blue-jacketed Faber Collected Poems sits on my desk more or less permanently. A tribute that’s obscure as hell is appropriate, not to mention easier…
May 30, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Jane Holland (who appears to have deserted us lately) wouldn’t thank me if I were to detail one of the searches which was used to navigate here today….some people have truly bizarre search strategies….
May 30, 2008 at 11:51 pm
A pretty improbable story when all is said and done. Coastal defence was a sophisticated art even in the long-ago.
May 31, 2008 at 12:33 am
I see graceandreachi was born in 1954. Good for her!
May 31, 2008 at 4:56 am
In literature I consider a great line, one that I remember; so for Michele’s projects herewith are a couple and unsure how one draws the essence into a heading.
Recently I skimmed over a reference to Sidney Carlton, I recall here though what I consider some famous last lines: “It is a far far better thing I do than I have ever done, it is a far far better place I go to than I have ever been..”
The following was resurfaced by Parisa on cif,
used I understand as a code in a true story:
“The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours. (Leo Marks)
Perhaps it was the movie that created the haunting quality left by these simple words.
(The first line was the heading)
May 31, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Is there any more pointless and egocentric blog on Hay than one which merely recounts which events one didn’t see? A new low, I suggest, even by the standards of that particular blogger…..
May 31, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I’ve a new plan for my autobiography. I shall relate a history of all the things I never did, all the people I never met, all the places I never saw, all the meals I never ate, all the women I never slept with, all the books I never read, etc. I shall only use words that I don’t know the meaning of.
Go on…admit it…you can’t wait.
May 31, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Mishari – Michele’s made a couple of other pieces based on phrases you supplied last time round, but she’s been unable to track down the poems themselves – googling the phrases + author in each case leads back only to your original comment. Can you recall the titles of the poems in which these occurred?
“gentle shadows” – Verlaine
“deceitful waters” – Mallarme
May 31, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I’ll find them. I just have to dig through a couple of books…
May 31, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Ok, the Mallarme is from a poem called Le Pitre Chatie, ( The Clown Punished)..
May 31, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Thanks – I’ve looked everywhere I can think of….
May 31, 2008 at 1:52 pm
…and the Verlaine is from a poem called Sagesse d’un Louis Racine, je t’envie!, (Wisdom of a Louis Racine, I envy you!).
May 31, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I just googled both poems and I can’t seem to find a translation for either, (other than googles own ‘translate his page’ function, which really won’t do). If Michele would like decent translations, let me know and I’ll post them…
May 31, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Many thanks mishari. I have been reading several of Verlaine’s poems (translated of course) but translations vary wildly in some cases. Your help has made the choice of poem clear
. Michele
May 31, 2008 at 2:12 pm
…your servant, ma’am.
May 31, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Simultaneous post! Thank you for the kind offer – I would not want to trouble you to prepare one especially. I am leaning towards Mallarme’s Le Pitre Chatie ‘Deceitful Waters’ at this point as a woman’s necklace based on a poem to a male French Dramatist seems too odd even for me! adieu Michele
May 31, 2008 at 3:56 pm
The Clown Punished By Stephane Mallarme
Eyes, lakes with my simple intoxication to be reborn
Other than the actor, who, with his gestures
As with a pen, evoked the the disgusting soot of the lamps,
I have pierced a window in the wall of cloth.
Limpid, treacherous swimmer with my leg and arms,
In many a bound, renouncing the evil Hamlet!
It is as if I began a thousand tombs in the waves
To disappear ino them a virgin.
Merry gold of the cymbal beaten with fists,
All at once the sun strikes the pure nakedness
Which was breathed from my cool mother-of-pearl.
When you passed over me, rancid night of the skin,
Not knowing, ingrate, that it was my whole annointing,
This rouge drowned in the deceitful waters of glaciers.
The translation is mine, as are any infelicities. I stuck to the original text pretty faithfully. I would have translated it differently if I was trying to produce a ‘poem’, if you see what I mean, but I think one can get the sense of it…
May 31, 2008 at 5:04 pm
That was generous of you, Mishari – I’ll make sure Michele sees this.
I was surprised when looking up the other Verlaine snippet (“blue disorder” from “Art Poetique” ) to discover just how poor most of the online translations are. Given that French/English bilingualism is reasonably common, and that the French poets concerned are out of copyright and well-known, I’d expected to find several poetic translations. Curious – any thoughts on why this might be?
May 31, 2008 at 5:26 pm
An interesting question. And you’re right, there are an awful lot of truly dreadful translations floating around. One can only assume that the bilingualists have no poetic skills and the poets have no bilingual skills, although I don’t think that can be true. Bit of a conundrum.
If Michele would like the Verlaine translated, or indeed , any other French poems, say the word. I actually enjoy doing it.
May 31, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Oh, and do provide a link to the piece when Michele finishes it..
May 31, 2008 at 5:51 pm
“…do provide a link to the piece when Michele finishes it..”
Will do. She is, btw (pace Iant earlier) threatening to go avant-garde and design something based on a piece of my doggerel just to shock the jewellery people….commercial suicide if you ask me….she has an impish streak which the jewellery and stained glass rarely affords opportunity to express – one exception is the penultimate piece on this page:
http://www.hedgelandsglassgems.co.uk/page18.htm
where she was given an unpromising handful of gothic letters by another stained glass artist, and came up with the anagram seen in the piece….
May 31, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Just thought it probably better to state here that I think my telepathic powers are back; actually it was more likely self doubt.
btw did you unlock the door Inspector Steve and allow the moustached man out?
May 31, 2008 at 8:56 pm
“btw did you unlock the door Inspector Steve and allow the moustached man out?”
….you mean Billy….?
June 1, 2008 at 12:05 pm
This is the link to ‘Deceitful Waters’, a piece designed to a Mallarme poem very kindly translated by mishari.
The piece is the penultimate one in the list. If you click on the images they open into full size so you can get a good look. Also apologies for the ’second ghosting’ of the text. I have no idea why it won’t delete!
Link http://www.hedgelandsglassgems.co.uk/userimages/procart37.htm
Michele
June 1, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Michele, Whirlwinds of Fire comes from Rimbaud’s poem, Qu’est pour nous, mon coeur, que les nappes de sang…, (What does it mean to us, my heart, the sheets of blood…).
The verse is:
‘Who should move the fierce whirlwinds of fire,
But we and those we imagine to be our brothers?
Help us, romantic friends: this will please us,
Never shall we toil, O waves of fire!’
Lovely pieces, by the way…
June 1, 2008 at 12:47 pm
..and I noticed you’re looking for a translation of the Verlaine:
It is the veiled and lovely eye,
the full noon vibrant with light;
it is, in the cool of an autumn sky,
the blue disorder of stars at night!
…hope it’s of some use.
June 1, 2008 at 12:56 pm
..sorry, the first letter of each line should be capitalized.
June 1, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I’ve also seen that phrase rendered as “blue jumble” which seems clumsily unpoetic to me….meanwhile, I tried to interest Michele in using the phrase “starless and bible black” but she remains unpersuaded….thanks for all the translations, Mishari….
June 1, 2008 at 2:58 pm
..I’ve also seen ‘blue confusion’, but I think blue disorder is closest to the original in spirit and more poetic besides. The word, ‘fouillis’, does also mean ‘jumble’ or ‘confusion’ or ‘mess’, but, hey…
If your going for starless and bible black you may as well have king crimson, as well.
June 1, 2008 at 2:59 pm
..I’ve also seen ‘blue confusion’, but I think blue disorder is closest to the original in spirit and more poetic besides. The word, ‘fouillis’, does also mean ‘jumble’ or ‘confusion’ or ‘mess’, but, hey…
If you’re going for starless and bible black you may as well have king crimson, as well.
June 1, 2008 at 5:06 pm
To be honest, when I suggested “starless & bible black” I’d been listening to KC rather than reading DT….
There’s another phrase from that song which would work well as a jewellery piece – “ice blue silver sky”….maybe “gold through my eyes” too….and the tracks “one more red nightmare” & “fallen angel” might inspire pieces….sadly, though, Michele can’t stand KC’s music…. 
June 1, 2008 at 6:59 pm
I happen to know (I have inside knowledge
)that she’s made a piece based on obooki’s suggestion of Joyce’s “brown imperturbable faces”….link to follow in time when pictures are available….
June 1, 2008 at 11:41 pm
England are utter crap. I can’t watch any more. Thank God we’re out of Euro 2008.
June 1, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I watched the first half – then I remembered I don’t like footy….
June 2, 2008 at 1:11 am
You know, if your pub team got beaten 3-0 by Trinidad and Tobago, you’d take it on the chin..but this is supposed to be England’s national team. pitiful…
June 2, 2008 at 2:00 am
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080601/thl-fbl-euro-2008-health-6a05898.html
June 2, 2008 at 5:03 am
I misread Joyce’s quote as ‘brown imperturbable faeces’ and shuddered at the thought of a necklace with cascade chains of polished jasper and amber beads.
The misreading is understandable given the post’s proximity to the footie remarks
June 2, 2008 at 8:15 am
mishari – many many thanks for the translations! I will update my information when I’m less pressed for time.
Oops – obooki are you psychic?
This will be the last poetry inspired design for a bit. I don’t have enough black to do ’starless and bible black’. But I do have an idea for a design – I just have to find the beads/materials to make it. I can’t resist a challenge!
June 2, 2008 at 11:30 am
…oh, you mean England actually won? Shows how keen an interest in football I take.
My pleasure, Michele. Happy to be of service. Is obsidian found in Britain, I wonder?
June 2, 2008 at 12:34 pm
“brown imperturbable faeces” is great. i’m going to use it someday in a novel as an obscure homage to Joyce.
it’s a pity you’re not going to do any more poetry inspired pieces. i was going to get my Dylan Thomas and GM Hopkins down and start churning out examples.
June 2, 2008 at 1:25 pm
So….who did win the famous deckchair….?
June 2, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Looks like WordPress is having a few problems at present, so if anyone’s posted a comment that doesn’t appear, please be patient….meanwhile, looks like doggerel is on the up:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2283291,00.html
June 2, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Well, either WordPress is totally screwed, or my previous comment deterred everyone from even trying….nonetheless I’d still like to know: who *did* get that bloody deckchair….
June 2, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Did you say nonetheless?
Anyway. The deckchair. Well it wasn’t you. It’s toward the end of the podcast, but actually not worth the wait. I think they must have just put all the entries into a hat and drawn one out randomly.
June 2, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I haven’t listened to the podcast: indeed, having a buggered soundcard, I *can’t* listen to the podcast; and, not having ventured an entry, I had a sneaking suspicion that I might not have won….but would like to know who *did*, for some bizarre reason – although, now I come to think about it, my curiosity has waned to negligibility….
June 2, 2008 at 9:37 pm
memo to self: examine the concept of podcasts for the audio impaired. needs a catchy name if it’s ever going to gain mass acceptance …
June 2, 2008 at 9:46 pm
They already do podcasts for the hearing and brain-impaired. They’re called television programs.
June 2, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Television you say? Hmmmnnnn, I had one of them once …
June 2, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Even if the soundcard wasn’t terminally buggered, I doubt I could bring myself to listen to something so naffly named as a “podcast”….
June 3, 2008 at 2:01 am
DiagonalArgument won the deckchair steve, with the hilarious: “seems like Mr and Mrs Argument had a child and called it Diagonal” or some such easy-listening-banter, then guffaw, guffaw. cringe…
June 3, 2008 at 2:05 am
Christ….
June 3, 2008 at 2:09 am
Personally thought fmk’s was by far the best suggestion :
“The person I’d most like to see at Hay is unlikley to be ever listed on the bill given that he’s been dead for two hundred and forty years or so but if we’re allowed indulge in a little tomb raiding and dial someone up on the ouja board, then perhaps the spirit of Laurence Sterne could be summoned to put in an apparition. The reading I’m sure would pass fine enough but come the Q&A session there might be a bit of disquiet as time runs out and no questions get answered and digression gets heaped upon digression.”
but then again, he doesn’t sound like a deckchair kinda guy….
June 3, 2008 at 8:32 am
In response to mishari’s question about obsidian – No, it is not found in Britain. It is found in Italy (Mt Etna?) and in the Americas. Volcanic glass is a material I readily take to in theory but I don’t like the snowflake obsidian that seems to dominate the market. I have used a couple of obsidian ‘arrowheads’ that had been treated with precious metals to form rainbow colours on the surface. Truly black/brown obsidian in bead form is hard to find.
And a little note that ‘Impeturbable’ has been posted on the following link at the bottom. This style of necklace is not uncommon but I’ve never gone there before so it was new for me – An impactful piece most certainly – http://www.hedgelandsglassgems.co.uk/userimages/procart37.htm
As mentioned earlier, I do have a design in mind for Starless and Bible Black – I will probably be using Haematite (or the man made form).
Once I get through some jewellery related creations I will crack on and do some art glass using the same phrases as inspiration.
Many thanks to you all once again for your tolerance and help! mb
June 3, 2008 at 5:17 pm
mish – i thought the first henry james nomination was worth atleast short-listing. tbh though, most of the suggestions were really dull and the winner was won of the dullest.
June 5, 2008 at 10:01 am
re competition, reminded me of those awful and self-satisfied mobile phone adverts of a few years back ‘Who would you have a one to one with?’ (‘I would have one to one with the bloke who stopped the tank in Tiennaman Square and ask him “How excited are you about meeting Radio 1 DJ Chris Evans?”‘)
In fact those are the only fuckers who annoy me on the Books Blog, the ones who swarm all over the place when they stick up a link from the front page, chortling in there with there ill-read obvious tedious opinions and reductive arguments before hopefully chuckling right off again (chuckling – I hate that word). All opinions about art are subjective are they? Right, thanks for that. Feel free to sod off at any time.
And the other sort of people who annoy me are the groups of workshy layabouts, often foreign, who infest this once great nation and have to be subsidised by the honest British Taxpayer, that is the aristocracy, the judiciary, the clergy, the media and international businessmen.
June 5, 2008 at 10:01 am
and those smileys can fuck right off as well.
June 5, 2008 at 10:31 am
ldg, it may interest you to know that I’m starting a political party, The Immigrant Layabout Front. Our slogan will be, “There IS TOO Such A Thing As A Free Lunch”.
Our agenda will be to smash the state, execute the aristocracy, murder the clergy, suborn the judiciary, stifle the media and tax foreign businessmen till they scream or go back where they fucking came from, (Russia).
I dare say you’ll want to make a contribution. Can I put you down for 50 quid?
June 5, 2008 at 11:43 am
yes, but only if you incorporate a new policy initiative I thought up for my political party (The Committe for the Reintroduction of the Thirteenth Century) yesterday and am very proud about – force people who work out in gyms to drink heavily while doing so – cider in lucozade bottles, interval training on the rowing machines where 500m sprints are interspersed with halfs of beer and whisky chasers, before a last precarious stumble up the treadmills trying not to get lost or spill their gin and tonics and then pass out on the exercise mats.
June 5, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Your scheme is a step in the right direction, ldg, but why go with half-measures? People who work out in gyms need a long, sharp shock. We have to be cruel to be kind. So beer and cider are out. It’s over-proof rum and bathtub gin, with regular intravenous shots of methamphetamine sulphate. Using electric cattle-prods to encourage their efforts, they will be made to build brick shit-houses and then knock them down again.
Every half-hour, they will be fed 5 Big Macs, 5 large fries and 5 bags of marshmallows, folowed by a hefty heroin/cocaine speedball injected directly into the heart. I’ll give the bastards a six-pack. The survivors will be appointed to cabinet positions. We can make this a land fit for heroes once again…
June 5, 2008 at 2:42 pm
ldg: “In fact those are the only fuckers who annoy me on the Books Blog, the ones who swarm all over the place when they stick up a link from the front page…”
I know what you mean….new blood is desperately needed there though, so if a few hang around and engage, it’s no bad thing….at least it wasn’t as corny as the “books for politicians” thread….
June 7, 2008 at 9:30 am
I thought the following remarks from wordnerd7 might interest you. I’m becoming convinced that WN7 was anytimefrances all along:
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/06/1)
” Unfortunately, on the booksblog, the Most Active list has been easily manipulated by a tiny band of poetry-loving imps, one of whom posts in poetry threads under something like 24 screen names, at a guess, to make them look busy. . . Why does this matter? The apparent popularity of the poetry threads is guiding editorial decisions. This means that the article most prominently displayed from Friday night to Monday morning, every week, is poetry-related. . . . Weekends are when a site is most likely to acquire new visitors, but prospective newcomers are almost certainly being put off by an impression of a cabal of poetry fanatics running the show. . .
There have been virtually NO additions to the site’s regular bloggers since last November, when our cherished and irreplaceable @cynicalsteve brought over a small group from Cif. . . The result? The booksblog has grown stupefyingly dull. . . There is, for instance, a blog on the fight between Walcott and Naipaul this weekend. With a single exception, the same dear bloggers whose opinions we all know far too well are repeating pretty much what they’ve said at least twice before. . . I suspect that we’d have lots of exciting new participants in that discussion if it weren’t for the predominance of the worthy but, frankly, pedantic poetry articles that have set the tone of the books site since the redesign. . . I’m delighted to have poetry, a form ignored for decades, given more attention — but dismayed by false impressions of actual interest in the subject distorting editors’ decisions.”
…when you led us over to the book blogs, did you actually part the waters or is my memory faulty?
June 7, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Mishari – I’ve replied to this at length on the current thread – no-one ever reads the old threads here….