The subject of the symposium is ‘de-professionalisation’ – the urge, as a creative practitioner, or, indeed, a practitioner of any kind, not to be identified with one genre or activity, and to be, in general, a critic of specialisation and a champion of dabbling...
Though my intention is to talk about the function of the little magazine at the present time, I should begin by discussing a bit the little magazine where I am an editor, and what I perceive its particular role to be...
Staring at you from innumerable photographs, their glossy hair combed back, writers can seldom be mistaken for hobos or tramps. If anything, they look more like men of action than men of contemplation, more men of the mechanized army than of the manual typewriter...
The subject of the symposium is ‘de-professionalisation’ – the urge, as a creative practitioner, or, indeed, a practitioner of any kind, not to be identified with one genre or activity, and to be, in general, a critic of specialisation and a champion of dabbling...
The impetus for writing this book was an invitation I received in 2017 from Ronald Schuchard, the Director of the London T. S. Eliot Summer School, to give the annual address at Little Gidding, on the fourth of the Four Quartets, which bears that title.
I shall never forget that evening in my life. We had to walk nearly 5 km in the dusk to reach that little, sleepy tribal village at the foot of a hill. I, in the capacity of a facilitator, was with a group of activists working with a forest tribe, the Forest Shepherds.
"The thurn was harried from his home / by a bailiff beetle with an acid aura / in a waistcoat grand and red as Rome..."
A year or so ago, I invited the Scottish writer Duncan McLean to come down from the Isle of Orkney where he lives to Dundee where I was hosting a series of literary events we called 'Writers Read.' This was a monthly get-together of students, teachers and anyone who was interested in reading and publishing, held in a convivial cafe where the espresso machine blasted every few minutes...
Zoom is where poetry goes to die. Or where we, dying, go for poetry. Or is it the best available platform for poetry in the age of covidity?
